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Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia left patrons at the Hogbetsotso-za in the Volta Region cheering loudly as he delivered a rousing speech during his appearance at the ongoing festival.

Throughout his near 8-minute speech, the Vice President had the crowd cheering, particularly after he listed the myriad historic achievements of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP).

The 2022 Hogbetsotso festival of the Chiefs and peoples of Anlo is currently being held, with this year’s festivities marking the 60th-anniversary celebration of the festival.

To mark its historic status, a tall litany of revered dignitaries have appeared at the festival including the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, who is the special guest of honour of the Awomefia, Torgbui Sri III.

Other honoured guests at the event include the Ga Mantse, Nii Tackie Teiko Tsuru II, Paramount Chief of Kwahu Traditional Area, Daasebre Akumoah Agyapong II and the current King Agorkoli of Nortsie of Togo.

Delivering his remarks, Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia addressed the current difficult economic climate, acknowledging the ongoing hardship, which he said was a global problem affecting all nations.

“I would be remiss if I do not touch on the economy. We all know we are facing a global economic crisis…the cost of living has accelerated across the globe. If you look at the cost of living as measured by the rate of inflation, between 2019 and now the cost of living or the rate of inflation has increased by fivefold in Ghana. It has increased by sixteenfold in Togo, by elevenfold in Senegal, sevenfold in Cote d’Ivoire and eightfold in the United Kingdom,” he said.

Best Performing Government of the 4th Republic
According to the Vice President, irrespective of the global economic turmoil, no government in the history of this 4th Republic can match the singular achievements of the ruling NPP.

Dr Bawumia went on to list some of these achievements which no government comes close to replicating.

“It is important to note however amidst all of this turmoil, we should put things in perspective. The government of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, over the last six years, have taken many steps to reposition and transform the economy. So whilst we have hardships today which we are working very hard to alleviate – and Insha Allah we would deal with them – let’s not forget what we have been able to do in the last six years

“Let me recall that our government in the last six years has created more jobs than any other government in the 4th Republic,” the Veep continued to loud cheers. “Let me recall that we have constructed more roads than any other government in the 4th republic…built more interchanges than any other government in the 4th Republic. Let me say we have built more airports than any other government, more railways than any other government, we have built more classrooms than any other government in the 4th Republic. We have constructed more fish landing sites than any other government in the 4th Republic,”

Bawumia continued: “Beyond infrastructure, we have implemented many transformational policies…Ghana has successfully issued the national ID card. For the first time in our history, Ghana has a digital property address system. For the first time in our history, Ghana has implemented mobile money interoperability between the telcos and the banks. This is the first in Africa and Ghana is the number one country in Africa for access to financial services.

“For the first time in our history, any Ghanaian who has a national id card can open a bank account sitting at home and don’t have to go to any bank to fill a form. For the first time in our history, we have drones delivering medical supplies to our people in the very remote areas whether it’s blood, vaccines, medicines, etc. Ghana is the whole world’s largest medical drone delivery.” 

Bawumia continued to list other unique NPP government achievements including one district one factory, paperless clearing of goods at the ports, digitised driver’s licence process and the ghana.gov platform, a well-stocked shop for public service delivery.

Others include providing Ghanaians with free water and electricity for a year at the height of the pandemic, providing free wifi to most high schools, colleges of education and public universities, one constituency-one ambulance, the Zongo Development Fund, free Technical-Vocational Education and Training (TVET) and free Senior High School (SHS).

Throughout the speech, Bawumia received rapturous cheers from the crowd, some of whom were captured by the cameras at the event.

At a point, a slight majority booed the Veep, but that pales in comparison to all that went before it.

The true story of the Vice President’s Hogbetsotso speech would be the appreciation the crowd appeared to show over the government’s tall list of achievements – perhaps not shocking, but surprising nonetheless – considering the speech was delivered in Anloga in the NDC’s so-called World Bank – the Volta Region.