Mahama - Govt Has No Guidelines for Rolled Out Policies

By Samuel Akapule

Bolgatanga — Former President John Dramani Mahama has criticised the government for failing to put in place policy directives to implement its numerous programmes.

He explained that any government that fails to put in place effective policy directives to implement its earmarked programmes and policies was bound to fail in the development of the citizenry and the nation as a whole.

"The NPP government seems to be running the nation in an ad-hoc manner. For every programme that is rolled out there is no policy, there is no guideline," he stressed.

Mr Mahama stated this on Saturday at the ninth edition of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Unity Walk held at Bolgatanga in the Upper East Region.

He cited the 'one million dollar per constituency per every year, the 'One village one dam', the 'One district one factory', 'the Planting for Food and Jobs' , the Free Senior High School and the restoration of the nursing and teachers allowances as some of the government's policies and programmes that lacked policy directives.

Former President Mahama insisted that most of the government's programmes could not be implemented well to achieve the desired results due to lack of policy directives, citing for instance the promise to restore nursing allowance which had not been paid for seven months.

He stated that as a result of the teachers' allowance paid from the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund), statutory funds paid into the consolidated fund for the payment of workers' salaries and other social services, the GETFund had less than GH¢500 million in its coffers, stalling many projects by the fund.

"Lack of accommodation for students of the new Free Senior High School Policy being implemented by the government was as a result of over deduction of money by the government from the GETFund into the consolidated fund.

"The inability to settle claims of many health service providers in the public and private hospitals by deductions from the National Health Insurance Authority into the consolidated fund for payment of government workers and other social services and purchase of essentials drugs, underscored the need to review the capping of statutory funds from sensitive sectors," former President Mahama noted.

He expressed worry about government's decision to task Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) to use part of their District Assembly Common Fund to pay for graduates to be employed under the Nations Builders Corps.

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