Former President, John Mahama has dismissed claims that guinea fowls under the Savanna Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) during his tenure in 2014 flew to Burkina Faso.
According to him, the project which sought to improve livelihoods faced unexpected challenges.
However, he said then opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) put a spin on it for political expediency.
Mr Mahama explained that, the initiative was aimed to incubate eggs and distribute day-old chicks to rural farmers, who would then raise them for meat.
The flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) revisited the saga at a media engagement in Bolgatanga to end his Upper East tour.
He blamed the media for the rife publication without the necessary checks for proper understanding of the project.
“No guinea fowl flew to Burkina Faso. Guinea fowls are not migratory birds and the project was not for you to come and see thousands of guinea fowls in one place. It was supposed to incubate the eggs and give the guinea fowls’ day-old chicks to farmers.
“And so somebody came and asked the watchman, ‘where are the guinea fowls? And the watchman said, they go Burkina Faso, they go come back in the rainy season.’ The media went and published it. And after that, there are people who believe that there were some guinea fowls that flew to Burkina Faso. So that project died. But I think it is a project we can look at again,” he explained.
The former President indicated that, there were plans for the mature guinea fowls to be processed and transported to market centres nationwide.
“There was supposed to be a processing plant so that the guinea fowls would be bought off the households and processed. And they would put them in frozen trucks to send them down to the south to the market. Unfortunately, the project ran into issues. The media criticised it, and they came and said the guinea fowls had flown to Burkina Faso,” he added.
Story by: Richard Nana Appiah Kubi/Ahotoronline.com
