The National Democratic Congress (NDC) flagbearer, John Dramani Mahama, has finally put to rest the long-standing controversy surrounding the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) guinea fowl project.
In a media engagement in Bolgatanga, Upper East Region, Mahama clarified that the allegations of guinea fowls flying to Burkina Faso during his presidency in 2014 were entirely false.
Mahama explained that the project’s true nature was an incubation process, where day-old chicks were distributed to farmers for onward rearing, contrary to popular belief that the birds were concentrated in an enclosed area.
“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.”
Mahama attributed the misinformation to a misunderstanding, where a watchman’s comment was misinterpreted and sensationalized by the media.
“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.”
Mahama also revealed that the project had a planned processing plant to buy, process, and transport guinea fowls to market centers 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 said
