Many agitates over feet dragging SADA.

By Joseph Osei Agitations are building up in the north on government to effectively execute programmes under Savannah Accelerated Development Authority(SADA)

as promise. The groups, Northern patriot in Research and Advocacy, the young executive and other groups doubts governments’ commitment to the programmes which they believe is the reasons for feet dragging in ensuring the program kick start. In an exclusive interview with this paper, the president of northern patriot in research and advocacy Bismark Adongo Ayorogo, said government has failed to deliver its part of the 4-year social contract it entered into with the good people of northern Ghana in 2008. He stated that one of the factors that led to the landslide victory of the NDC in the 2008 general elections was the social contract it entered with Ghanaians, particularly, those from the North, that it was fully aware of the serious deprivations and unacceptable levels of poverty in the North, and was therefore going to take immediate and urgent steps to bridge the development gap between the North and South. He said government's failure to capture SADA as its major pro-poor policy intervention in the 2011 budget statement, even gave the clue that SADA is not the government's priority, and this is undoubtedly, not only deepening the feelings of Ghanaians that the Mills-led administration cannot be trusted and relied on to address regional inequalities, but also seriously undermines Article 36 (2d) of the 1992 Constitution, which obligates the state to build a healthy and sound economy, by ensuring that there is even and balanced development of Ghana. A member of Young Executives, Randy Agana also challenge government’s claims of 100 million Ghana cedis paid into SADA account, he said the Vice president has not been serious when comes to issue of SADA. He accuse him of failing in anything he handles, he mentioned the failed STX deal as something that has failed in the hands of the Vice. Other people who spoke to this paper, expressed disappointment about the handling of the SADA programme, they said, least is mention of SADA because the people have waited long to see something meaningful executed. They added that, government failed to honour its promise of providing GH¢200 million as seed capital and the GH¢100 million annually and questioned why the government has not also held the donor conference as promised in its manifesto Whiles many commend government for initiating the implementation of SADA, the also expressed their are totally dissatisfied with government’s unwillingness to allocate substantial amount of state resources to this pro-poor SADA. In a quick rebuttal, an Aid to the Vice President, John Jinapor said government is doing much to ensure that the program succeed and accuse the group of using the SADA programme to play politics. He appealed to those with genuine critism to exercise a little patience for the board of SADA is putting this in place to ensure its smooth take off. The chief executive, Mr Gilbert Iddi who agreed to speak to the issue was conducting an interview for prospective employees to for the programme at time of filing this story.