Former President of Ghana, John Dramani Mahama has expressed shock at claims that the opposition political party has no social intervention policy as a political party.
To him, any individual who makes this assertion needs more education on what social intervention is.
The former President was addressing the media on Sunday, July 7, 2024, when he made this known.
He listed several social interventions introduced by the National Democratic Congress (NDC).
“The District Common Fund was introduced by the NDC, we put it in the 1992 constitution. We said a total of 5 to 8% of total government revenue should go directly to the districts for their development. So if you go to your district and the district assembly has built a school, a KVIP, a nursery, a sports recreational facility, community center it Is a social intervention of the NDC which has done that.
Who introduced the GETFUND? It’s Rawlings and the NDC. We passed the GETFUND Law and without GETFUND where would our education be? A number of school infrastructure is being provided by GETFUND. So how can you say we haven’t introduced any social intervention? In any case, what is a social intervention policy?
It is an introduction of policies that provide social services for people. We have provided more access to water than any government in the history of this country. When Professor Mills came to government, access to water was 57% by the time we left office access to water was 76%. In Accra alone we added 40 million gallons of water. For eight years this government hasn’t added even one gallon. I hear the Ghana Water Company say Accra’s population is outgrowing its supply of water. Accra is outgrowing because you’ve not added a single gallon to it. You must plan and know what your population growth is and you must continue to put the capacity to bring in more water that is why I’m saying that we took water and brought it in from the northern direction of this country and so Adenta and the other places that hadn’t seen water for 15 years saw water for the first time”.
“We’ve extended electricity across the country than any other government in the history of the country. When electricity arrives in an area it changes the lives of the people rapidly, people can engage in small-scale enterprises. Rawlings introduced rural electrification and national electrification programmes. And so today if we say that Ghana has more than 80% access to electricity, it is because the NDC introduced these policies. So how can anybody say NDC has not provided any social intervention?
Even the NHIS, the NDC started the pilot in Damango and Nkoranza. Implementation started in President Kufour’s time but what President Kufour introduced is a Mutual Health Insurance Scheme. Today’s Health Insurance was introduced by Prof Mills. He changed it from a mutual, District Health insurance to a national health insurance so that your card can provide you with health care across the country and so I wonder what is giving these people this idea,” he said.
I can refer to free school uniforms and free sandals, I can refer to this that by the time we left office every child in basic education had three textbooks. If that is not social intervention I wonder what else is social intervention. Even progressively free shs I introduced it and so you can’t say that we don’t have any social intervention. If you talk about the cocoa sector, our free fertilizer and free seedlings changed the lives of the cocoa farmers. If you remember before I leave office we had done one million tonnes because of the policy that we had of giving these inputs to the farmers. If that is not social intervention then I don’t know. That argument must stop,” he said.
Source: MyNewsGH
