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The Flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), former President John Mahama has been asked by the General Secretary of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) John Boadu to channel his request for the audit report on cocoa roads to the right place and not on a campaign platform.

The Mahama administration was accused of awarding over 230 road contracts to the tune of GHS3.5 billion under the cocoa road project to the detriment of COCOBOD’s finances.

The New Patriotic Party government, therefore, halted the construction of the cocoa roads across the country in 2017 over corruption concerns.

Speaking at Bopa as part of his tour of the Western North Region, the former President dared the government to produce the said report adding that the government has deliberately started reconstructing the roads few months to the election for political gains.

“They abandoned the projects because of sabotage and politics. Because they realized we are close to elections, they have started work on the roads again. I want to know where the audit report is. I am here at Bopa asking the NPP government to publish the audit reports on cocoa roads for everyone to see.”

“The laws of Ghana indicate that if a government starts a project and loses the elections, it is incumbent on the next government to continue with the projects. But this is not what we are seeing. When the NDC was voted out of power, there were a lot of contractors working on projects, but when this government took over, they halted all of them, saying it was auditing them. It has been four years now and I believe that even if it was the Bible we were reading, we would have covered from Genesis to Revelations by now,” he added.

But according to John Boadu, the former President knows where to apply to get an answer to his question about the audit report on the cocoa roads; describing the demand of the former President as unnecessary.

“If he wants, he should go to the appropriate channel to seek the audit report about the cocoa roads and not that he should stand on a campaign platform to ask for the audit; I don’t think it is necessary, what is needed is that if he knows the appropriate channel and he wants the audit report, he can apply for it and he will get the audit report,” he said.

He thus, disclosed that the audit on the cocoa roads done by the Akufo-Addo government saved the country over Ghc2 billion Cedis as the supposed debts they claimed were incurred were due to awarding the same contract to more than two contractors.

He added that addressing the cocoa roads is in the right direction regardless of the time the Akufo-Addo government is reconstructing them so long as it is in the interest of the cocoa farmers in the country.

“Through our audit, many of the contractors did not come forward again to lay claim to their monies and so the audit saved the country a lot . . ." he added.