President of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo
The Member of Parliament for Buem Constituency, Kofi Adams, has asked President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to apologise to the Paramount Chief of Aflao following his response to him.
Mr Adams said the President was wrong in his response to the request made by the traditional ruler.
Minority members on the Education Committee of Parliament are visiting uncompleted projects in the country. They visited one of the projects in the commercial city of Aflao in the Volta region.
Over there, they met the Paramount Chief Torgbui Adzonugaga Amenya Fiti, who then raised issues against the failure to finish the project and further gave the government a four-month ultimatum to open the e-block community day senior high school which in his view, has stalled since 2016.
The ¢9 million project which was part of some 200 classroom blocks the erstwhile Mahama administration started was supposed to have some 26 classrooms attached and 5 departments including a science block.
Torgbui Adzonugaga Amenya Fiti speaking with the Minority side of the Education Committee who toured the uncompleted school buildings in the Ketu South constituency says, government’s approach to education is appalling.
“After senior high school education, the next degree that my people have to do is to go to border and go and do kayayo, no school.”
“The only school that we have is the RC Senior High School that belongs to the Catholic Mission Minor Seminary. So this thick population have no place to go and people sit down in that big hall called parliament and not thinking about Aflao, a place after the Tema Harbour, the next revenue generation is from the Aflao border.”
“I had to push the former President Mahama for the structure to be constructed over there. I had to be running from here to Accra begging. Should we beg for education?”
In response to the Chief’s comment, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo who was not happy with the ultimatum given by the Chief, in a sarcastic manner, asked the Chief to complete E-block by himself.
The President said most of the E-block projects started by the Mahama administration have been completed by his government. Others are also at various stages of completion, he said.
He said on Accra-based Peace FM Thursday, October 21 that “Many of the E-blocks are being worked on across the country.
“Is he [Aflao Chief] the one to give the minister ultimatum then he should go ahead and complete the project.”
Reacting to these comments by the President, Mr Kofi Adams said “The President’s answer to the Chief is absolutely wrong , the president should not have spoken the way he did
“Torgbui Fiti doesn’t take our taxes, monies are collected even from his people in Aflao and other areas, it is lodged with government or our President, he is the Chief spending officer, the finance minister presents the budget on his behalf.”
“All the monies that are collected including from the people Togbui Fiti superintend, is serenaded to the President to spend so if they are saying that you have introduced a system where monies collected from us is used to support education and because you have failed to complete infrastructure in my area, this municipality does not have a secondary school and a lot of my people are not benefiting from the policy, and the response he gives is that ‘is he the one to request for completion?’
“I think that the president must apologize. It doesn’t matter where a chief is, it doesn’t matter where he comes from, it doesn’t matter which people he presides over. The chiefs must be given the respect that they need.”