Editorial

Let’s promote the culture of continuity in governance

THE President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo at the weekend, made a profound statement; “continuity in governance is very important if progress and growth are to be achieved”.

He said this when he inaugurated a $52million, 160-bed capacity hospital project in Wa, in the Upper West Region.

The President added that the hospital was a monumental evidence of what continuity could do for a country.

The statement by the president is very significant because it touched on a very important topic that has been in the public domain for a while.

Indeed, majority of Ghanaians hold the view and evidence on the round suggest that successive government refuse to continue with projects and programmes they inherit from previous governments.

In fact, anytime such debates come up and accusations and counter accusations leveled, excuses are given as to why one project of another government was discontinued or abandoned.

As a matter of fact, every government that Ghana has had in the Fourth Republic is guilty of this practice. The nation has lost a lot of money through this practice. The amount of money would run into billions of cedis.

It is, therefore, refreshing that the President made such a profound statement and we think it should be the turning point for all governments, going forward, to adopt the continuity in governance principle.

The Ghanaian Times applauds the President for showing the way by making such an important statement at the inauguration of the $52million hospital project which was initiated after Parliament had approved the loan agreement in 2008.

What this means is that the project has survived four administrations of the Fourth Republic with each President contributing his quota to the success story.

“This project has passed through the hands of four successive governments. It was initiated and began under the second President of the Fourth Republic, President John Agyekum Kufuor and continued by his predecessor the late Professor John Evan Atta Mills and by his successor John Dramani Mahama and being inaugurated by me, the fifth president of the Fourth Republic,” he emphasised.

How we wish this had happened throughout our history, where projects started by previous governments would be completed by successive ones.

We can give examples but there are too many of such abandoned projects by successive governments for us to recount here.

Our joy is that the President has spoken the minds of majority of Ghanaians and we hope that from now into the future, projects started by previous government would be completed by succeeding governments.

We commend the President for making such an important statement that in our estimation would change our approach to governance in the country.

It has been the wish of majority of Ghanaians that governments would continue projects of their predecessors so that the resource spent on those projects would not go waste.

We applaud the President and hope that we have seen the back of the non-continuation of projects and embarking on a journey into the future with continuity in governance.

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