Reboot Mahama for 2024

Reboot is defined as starting something again or doing something again, in a way that is new and interesting.

There are pretty inspiring success stories of former President John Dramani Mahama during his tenure as president of the Republic. I have already shared some of these fascinating achievements, but still want to continue; this time around, in the area of communication and security.

COMMUNICATION

Many far-reaching interventions were initiated to further develop the sector by the Mahama-led government. These include: National Data Centre, Business Process Outsourcing Centre, Eastern Corridor Fibre Optic, e-Transform Ghana Project, Enhanced Community Information Centres, e-Government Project, Just to mention a few.

SECURITY

President Mahama intensified efforts toward positioning the country's security agencies to adequately respond to contemporary security challenges. This was done through the biggest retooling of the security agencies in recent Ghanaian history.

Police: numerical strength was improved from 23,204 in 2012 to 32,117 in 2014, resulting in a Police-Population Ratio (PPR) of 1:724 as against 1:1,000 in 2010. This brought Ghana closer to the United Nations benchmark of 1:500 (PPR), and led to an increase in Police visibility and accessibility which is key in crime detection, prevention and control.

Available statistics show that crime rate dropped by over 5,000 between 2013 and 2014. A total of over 1,424 vehicles were procured for the Ghana Police by Government during his tenure.

Fire Service: The Ghana National Fire Service took delivery of 126 new firefighting vehicles in 2012. In 2014, an additional 80 fire tenders were procured bringing to 206 the number of new fire firefighting vehicles procured by his government. This represented a vast improvement over the 95 firefighting vehicles that were procured for them between 2001 and 2008, a situation that adversely affected their ability to effectively respond to fire outbreaks in the country.

Ghana Armed Forces: The Army, Navy and Airforce all benefitted from a comprehensive retooling programme. This includes modern aircrafts and military equipment. Besides, his government finalised arrangements to procure additional modern ships for the Navy.

Ghana Immigration Service (GIS): The operations of the Border Patrol Unit (BPU) of GIS was enhanced by the installation of border surveillance systems at 15 out of 17 strategically selected border control points throughout the country. Furthermore, an e-Immigration project was implemented to enhance the work of the Ghana Immigration Service, and also to reduce processing time for persons travelling through our ports of entry. Additionally, the Immigration Service Bill was put before Parliament prior to his exit from office.

There is still more to talk about which goes on to confirm the holistic nature of the transformational agenda of H.E. John Mahama. He is not done yet, he has more up his sleeve. He is visionary. He sees beyond what others see. Let's reboot him for 2024.