I ‘rejected’ luxury of using V8 to provide water for my people

Yao Gomado, Member of Parliament for the Akan Constituency Yao Gomado, Member of Parliament for the Akan Constituency

MP says he has ‘diverted’ funds from car loan facility

The cost of maintaining a V8 can cater for water needs of constituents

MP mortgages four-year salary to get grader for road repairs

Engineer Yao Gomado, Member of Parliament for the Akan Constituency in the Oti region, has disclosed that he received his share of the car loans advanced to lawmakers but that he refused to use it for the intended purpose.

In an interview with a Joy News journalist, Gomado said other pressing needs of his constituents was the reason he ‘diverted’ the funds.

According to him, the issue of water provision had long bedevilled communities in his constituency and he found it more prudent to invest the cumulative sum of the loan and insuring it to support water provision.

“I am supposed to be in my V8, the V8 was a loan, and after giving the V8 to us, we need to insure them at a cost of 42,000 (plus) COVID levy and DVLA, when I summed up altogether, it is going to be about 60,000 cedis for me to be in a V8.

“So, I said, I have a car that takes me around, the people are in need of water, why will I use 60,000 cedis, when that 60,000 cedis can be used to purchase 200 blue pipes that can give the community about 25 – 30 mechanised boreholes,” he added.

According to him, he has already helped drill 41 mechanised boreholes from 2019 to date, together with partners from Saudi Arabia.

He underscored that the provision of water was a promise to the electorate stressing that in his opinion, politics is about service to the people and that there is the need to continually serve them.

The Joy News report added that as a cocoa growing area with bad roads, Gomado has mortgaged his four-year salary to get a grader to help reshape feeder roads to help farmers transport crops to market centres.

He joins another NDC MP in the person of Francis-Xavier Sosu who is on record as stating that he had opted against using V8 as a matter of principle when his constituents are suffering from lack of basic amenities.