No guinea fowl flew to Burkina Faso – Mahama on infamous ‘akonfem’ saga

Flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama has finally responded to allegation that guinea fowls under the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) flew to Burkina Faso during his reign as president.

Ghanaians will recall that the management of SADA in 2014 was heavily criticized when it was reported that some guinea fowls under the programme had migrated to Burkina Faso.

The former President has today responded to the allegation during a media engagement in Bolgatanga to wrap up his tour of the Upper East Region. 

Responding to the issue, John Mahama said,“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.”

He added that “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.”

“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 concluded.

By Edem Mensah-Tsotorme