US-based medical practitioner and former NPP presidential aspirant Dr. Arthur Kennedy has warned that judgment debt could become one of the major scandals of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government if it leaves office.
Dr. Kennedy expressed concern about the common practice of abandoning public housing projects whenever there is a change in government, which he believes contributes to significant financial losses for Ghana.
In an interview with Selorm Adonoo on The Big Issue on Channel One TV, Dr. Kennedy noted that major public housing projects have often remained incomplete since President Jerry John Rawlings’ administration.
He suggested that the NPP government is unlikely to be an exception and could leave behind one of the largest judgment debt scandals in the country’s history.
“If indeed Article 35(7) [of the 1992 Constitution] says that as far as practicable, governments should continue projects and programmes initiated by previous governments and if a government is not doing that, what records do the people have?
Since Rawlings, almost every government has commenced a big public housing project and they do it up to about 80 percent they leave office and the new government go to look for money and starts their own project then they abandon it and this can cause financial loss to the state.
“I have reason to believe that, when this government leaves that doesn’t mean that that is just the sin of the NPP.
I think that judgment debt might be one of the biggest scandals and most judgment debts come from the fact that projects initiated by previous governments are abandoned whenever there is a new government.
