MiDA is on course

Page 16: March 29, 2008.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Chief Executive of the Millennium Development Authority (MiDA), Mr Martin Eson-Benjamin, has denied that the authority is veering off its objectives.
He said criticisms by the presidential candidate of the Convention People’s People (CPP), Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom, that the authority was veering off its objectives were unfair.
Mr Eson-Benjamin was speaking during a courtesy call on the Managing Director of the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL), Mr Ibrahim Awal, in Accra yesterday.
He said the programme to rehabilitate dilapidated schools pending the take-off of the construction of greenfield schools, a term used to refer to the construction of new schools right from the scratch, with all facilities needed for the development of pupils, was approved by the board of directors of MiDA when Dr Nduom was the board chairman.
He showed a procurement notice published on May 8, 2007 for the “fast track” rehabilitation of schools in three intervention zones.
According to him, the procurement notice could not have been published without Dr Nduom’s approval and quoted the CPP flag bearer’s comments at a July 2007 procurement sub-committee meeting in which he was said to have advised that care should be taken in choosing the right architects and contractors for the jobs.
Mr Eson-Benjamin explained that the decision to undertake the fast track rehabilitation of the selected schools, which are 35 in number, was because the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) was not ready for the construction of the greenfield schools.
He explained that the construction of the schools was to provide excellent educational facilities for deprived communities.
Mr Eson-Benjamin said MiDA decided to rehabilitate some of the dilapidated schools in some of the beneficiary communities to improve upon the teaching and learning environment before the major work started.
He said MiDA went by the procurement guidelines of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) and indicated that if the proposal for the rehabilitation of the schools was contrary to the MCC’s programme objectives, it would not have been approved.
“Is Dr Nduom saying that the MCC is flouting its own guidelines?” he asked.
Mr Eson-Benjamin said MiDA had provided $3.2 million for the Public Procurement Board of Ghana to help put in place a professional procurement curriculum for the training of professional procurement officers in the country’s tertiary institutions.
He said a series of activities under MiDA would start between August and September this year when $365 million would be released for the authority’s programmes, saying that under them, 230 kilometres of tarred roads and two ferries in the Afram Plains area would be provided.
Mr Eson-Benjamin said the design for the construction of the Motorway Extension project, which would be named the George Walker Bush Motorway, was ready and he was hopeful that the contractor for the project would be selected to start work this year.
The legal counsel for MiDA, Ms Dorothy Gyamfi, said accessing the MCA funds was a highly regulated process and it was based on passing the annual assessment on criteria, such as good governance and the time for starting business in the country.
Mr Awal stressed the need for MiDA and the GCGL to collaborate further in not just disseminating information on the activities of MiDA but also educating the public on them.
The five-year, approximately $547 million assistance to Ghana aims at reducing poverty by raising farmer incomes through private sector-led agribusiness development.
The programme will operate in 23 districts in the Northern Region, the central Afram Basin region and the southern horticultural belt where poverty rates are generally above 40 per cent.
Ghana signed the compact on August 1, 2006 but operations really started on February 16, 2007 after recruitment and initial funds were made available.