President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and the Member of Parliament for Yapei-Kusawgu Constituency, Abdulai John Jinapor, have traded jabs over their respective performances as MPs and Ministers.
Nana Addo jabbed the young MP during a speech delivered in his constituency following a request from the Paramount Chief of the Yapei Traditional area, Yapeiwura A.B.T Zakaria, who appealed to the president for the extension of electricity to some 17 communities in his traditional area.
Responding to the request, Nana Akufo-Addo criticised John Jinapor, the current MP and a former Deputy Energy Minister during the NDC administration, for failing to get his constituency fully connected to the national grid.
The President went on to appeal to the people in the area to change their voting patterns and elect the NPP to see the development they need in their lives.
“The young man [John Jinapor] who for a long time was minister of power, 17 communities in his district still have not been connected to the electricity grid,” the president said.
He added that there had been “no senior technical high school in the whole of the Kusawgu area” despite all these years of having the NDC represent them in Parliament.
The President called for a change of voting patterns to ensure they elect a party that cares (the NPP).
Jinapor Responds
The Member of Parliament for the area, John Jinapor, quickly jumped on social media to respond and jabbed the President.
According to him, when he ascended to power only a few communities in the area had electricity and he managed to connect the majority of them to the national grid.
He also jabbed the President that despite being MP for Kyebi for several years and a minister, the area only received pipe-borne water during the tenure of the Mahama government.
Check out his response below…
EXPOSING THE FABRICATIONS OF A NON-PERFORMING GOVERNMENT
During the recent visit of President Akuffo-Addo to the Savannah Region, the chiefs of the Yapei-Kusawgu Constituency sought to enquire from the President when he will fulfil his campaign promises of creating a new district out of the Central Gonja District and the establishment of a new Senior High school in the Kusawgu area.
In response, President Akuffo-Addo rather chose to throw wild and flippant allegations against me, Hon John Jinapor, for what he described as my inability to connect some 17 communities to the national electricity grid. As if that was not enough, he procedeed to accuse me of not helping to establish the Senior High school that he, President Akuffo-Addo promised.
For the record, when I was appointed the Deputy Minister of Energy and Petroleum, the Yapei-Kusawgu Constituency had only 4 towns connected to the national grid (i.e. Buipe, Yapei, Sankpala and Kusawgu).
By dint of hardwork, the constituency currently has about 100 communities connected to the national grid as part of an aggressive national electrification programme under the NDC Government.
So Mr. President, if we have only 17 towns yet to be connected to the national grid, the critical question you should answer is what have you done so far to complement what you inherited? You cannot be sleeping on the job and blame others for your own failures.
More importantly, at national level, the NDC Government expanded access to electricity from 50% to 83.24%.
This can be confirmed in Paragraph 463 of the 2017 budget as presented by Mr. Ken Ofori-Attah, the Finance Minister: “ *Under rural electrification, 1,212 communities were connected to the national grid increasing the national electricity access rate from 80.5 percent to 83.24 percent”.* President Akuffo-Addo since assuming office and despite receiving over 20 billion Cedis in ESLA Revenues, has only increased the access rate by a paltry 3%—thus from 83.24% to 86.63% as captured under Paragraph 810 of the 2022 budget: “ *In pursuit of H.E. The President’s aspiration to achieve universal coverage of electricity by 2024, a total of 162 communities were connected to the national grid thereby increasing the national electricity access rate from 85.17 percent in 2020 to 86.63 percent in 2021.*
On the education front, President Mahama can be credited for 3 senior high schools ( Buipe Senior High, Buipe Technical and Mpaha Senior High) in the Yapei-Kusawgu Constituency.
It is an undeniable fact that the NDC government under the leadership of President Mahama, the Yapei-Kusawgu witnesses the commencement and commissioning of the Buipe Cement Factory and the Sheanut Processing factory not to mention the ultramodern Buipe District Hospital. Unfortunately under President Akuffo-Addo, the Sheanut factory has been grossly mismanaged and run-down for sometime now. No wonder he conveniently refused to visit Buipe, the district capital of the Central Gonja District.
For someone who failed to provide portable drinking water for his own people as Minister and MP, untill President Mahama provided portable water for the people of Kyebi, the least President Akuffo-Addo can do is to acknowledge the good works of his predecessor.
I wish to entreat President Akuffo-Addo to crosscheck his facts in future before seeking to deceive the citizenry with concocted, unsubstantiated and fabricated allegations.
Ghanaians are indeed suffering under the abysmal performance of the Nana/Bawumia government and the least they can expect from this non-performing government is to be truthful and honest with the facts.
John Abdulai Jinapor
Former Deputy Minister of Energy and Petroleum
26th August, 2022
Source: theGhanaianVoice.Com
