More than 13,000 infrastructural projects have been successfully executed and validated by the government between January 2017 and June 2023, Minister of Works and Housing, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, has revealed.
These projects, he said, included a total of 11,974.96 kilometres of roads, 1,446 telephony sites, more than 526 basic school projects, 588 senior high school projects, five out of the 10 Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) schools, six out of the 12 interchanges and 88.75per cent electricity coverage for the country.
Mr Nkrumah revealed this at the launch of the Performance Tracker, a new application designed to provide real time information on the performance of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) in Accra on Wednesday.
The Performance Tracker is an updated version of the delivery tracker launched in 2020 by the Vice President, Alhaji Dr Mahammudu Bawumia, and it aims at helping the public track all government projects.
Launching the Tracker, Mr Oppong Nkrumah said it would help promote transparency and accountability in the execution of government’s development projects across the country.
He said the Tracker detailed government’s investment and development, especially in infrastructure and service delivery across the country.
The minister said among many other things, the Tracker would help address some of the frequently asked questions by journalists and academics about the utilisation of revenues.
“The media is asking questions on a regular basis, the fourth estate of the realm holding the government accountable. What has the government done with the resources of the state? The answers are here, civil society organisations sometimes across various sectors, asking questions the answers are here and hear on an academic premises like this. You also do a lot that academia is always asking questions. The answers are here,” he emphasised.
Mr Oppong Nkrumah explained that the performance tracker had an architecture of about five key parts with information organised in five key buckets.
He said it was a comprehensive database designed to be user-friendly and accessible through both a website and a mobile application which had undergone a rigorous validation process with geo-tagging and photographing projects to ensure transparency.
“The performance tracker is a database that showcases the performances of the government and it is going to show you the various projects that have been executed across the country. This database has two interfaces; a website and an application. Today the mobile phone is very powerful too and sometimes even beyond what your desktop can do,” he said.
The Minister of Information designate, Fatimah Abubakar, said over the years monitoring the progress of government projects had always been a challenge, as a result the government had to take the bold decision to address this challenge by developing a mechanism that was convenient, credible, and accessible, regardless of one’s location within the country.
“Hence the reason we are gathered here today, we undertook a comprehensive data collection initiative in collaboration with ministries, departments and agencies, as well as metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies to gather accurate information on government projects across the nation,” she said.
Ms Abubakar said the Performance Tracker had carefully been put together, thus removing duplicates and ensuring its accuracy through a collaborative validation process with MMDCEs through open communication and ongoing collaboration.
“The Tracker will offer Ghanaians a user friendly platform to access real time information on government projects throughout the country. This data is your power, it will be an enabler for accountability and monitoring of government projects towards the national development agenda.”
BY CLIFF EKUFUL
