A report by the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) has disclosed that residents in poor communities that were targeted for the $1 million per constituency promised by Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo are not aware of projects being implemented.
The CDD-Ghana report tracked the projects promised by Nana Akufo-Addo and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) during the 2016 electioneering season under the ‘$1m-one-constituency’ promise in 20 out of the 275 constituencies in Ghana.
The study, which started in 2017 found that overall, there was very low community awareness of the pro-poor projects in the constituencies and districts.
Also, there was generally low community engagement in project selection and prioritisation as decisions are usually taken at the national level and the district level by few officials such as Members of Parliament and District Chief Executives, according to the report.
The use of local labour was very minimal in the beneficiary communities, the report added.
“Many of the informants complained about the fact that the contractors working on the projects were not from the community and in some cases outside of the region,” said Gildfred Asiamah, a Research Analyst at CDD-Ghana, who presented an abridged version of the report on Wednesday, September 16, 2020.
IPEP Tracker
The NPP promised in its 2016 elections manifesto to allocate the Ghana Cedi equivalent of $1 million to each of the 275 constituencies.
The promise dubbed the ‘Infrastructure for Poverty Eradication Programme (IPEP)’ seeks to enhance capital infrastructure provision at the district/constituency level as a means to accelerate growth, create jobs and reduce poverty, particularly in rural and deprived communities.
Upon assumption of office, the NPP Government established the Ministry for Special Development Initiatives (MSDI) in February 2017 to implement the IPEP. It also set up three Development Authorities (DAs) and their governing boards as well as an inter-Ministerial Oversight Committee.
Also, the government set up a ten-member ad-hoc committee to undertake constituency infrastructure needs assessment.
After that, the MSDI in 2018 began selected government priority infrastructure projects across all the 275 constituencies under the IPEP
CDD-Ghana in 2017 launched the ‘IPEP Tracker’ project to monitor the implementation of IPEP.
The overall goal of the IPEP Tracker project is to contribute to efforts to eliminate corruption by ensuring transparency and accountability in the implementation of the IPEP.
