PRE SONA: EXPECTATIONS OF THE PUBLIC

President John Dramani Mahama has been scheduled to deliver his first State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Thursday, the 27th of February 2025 following his election as President of the Republic of Ghana on 7th December 2024 and subsequent sworn-in on 7th January 2025 for his second term (having served his first term from January 7, 2013 to January 6, 2017).
The President in so doing would have fulfilled Article 67 of the 1992 Constitution which reads “The President shall, at the beginning of each session of Parliament and before a dissolution of Parliament, deliver to Parliament a message on the state of the nation”.
However, before the said address is delivered tomorrow, the Information Services Department (ISD) interacted with some individuals to solicit their expectations on the SONA.
The individuals who were engaged identified some key issues they expected the President to touch on and these include; Employment, Agriculture, Education, Corruption and Security.
On Employment, the expectation of the much talk about 24hr Economy was high and people did not expect too much bureaucratic processes to delay the kick-start of the policy and expected to see some concrete preparatory works for the commencement of the program by the end of this year (2025).
Tied to the 24hr Economy was expectation of accelerated agriculture drive. Respondents believed that the country has huge potential for agriculture development which is yet to be maximized and had no doubt that agriculture is the key to unlocking the fortunes of the country and with the expected 24hr Economy, expected serious attention to be given to agriculture development and the need for that is now. They therefore expected government to prioritize agriculture more seriously than ever before.
On Education, respondents were expecting commitment to drastic development and improvement in the educational sector especially in the second circle institution that is currently characterized with feeding challenges. Some of them were of the view, that though the Education Minister constituted a committee to spearhead stakeholder discussion on educational reform, they expected the President to constantly pay attention to the Committee’s work to ensure that they did the right thing in line with his manifesto promise and the general expectation by the public.
Corruption was one key thing the people lamented about and expressed support for the Operation Recover All Loots (ORAL) drive promised by the NDC manifesto. However, where the people were happy about ORAL and expected the President to ensure that any state resources proven to have been stolen by the operatives of the previous government were retrieved, they were quick to add, that they also expected the President to do everything possible to make corruption extremely unattractive for his own appointees and where any of his appointees were found to have involve in corruption, they were not only dismissed but the President must ensure that they were brought to book under his regime.
On Security, though the respondents expected the President to reassure the nation on the general security of the citizenry, they were more concerned about the developments in Bawku and some part of the northern sector including the President’s own backyard, Bole, and expected the President to put measures in place to find a lasting solution to whatever issue that might be the root cause of such developments especially in Bawku.