Delivery tracker and Green Book: Here is what you need to know

Infrastructural or development delivery tracker does not have a direct meaning in the dictionary but as the term suggests, the tracker keeps tabs on status of delivery of government infrastructural and development projects.

The tracker website is said to aid in ensuring transparency and accountability in the governance system.

The term was first announced on August 18, 2020 by the Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, during the electioneering campaign in 2020.

Before the introduction of the tracker website, the erstwhile National Democratic Congress (NDC) government in its bid to keep records of their projects and achievements introduced the ‘GreenBook.’

Similarities and differences between the Green Book and Delivery Tracker

Unlike the Delivery tracker website and App, the GreenBook as the name implies had all its infrastructural and other development projects stipulated in a book with its soft copy in PDF.

While the Tracker is a living portal subject to change and updates, the GreenBook was a written document at the end of a four year term.

The book was also presented in two parts,with the first part giving a broad overview of Government’s performance and the second part providing pictorial proof of work done at the district level.

However, both websites are similar in content format. Both Tracker and GreenBook are to keep records of projects and promises made during campaigns which have been delivered. They both address infrastructure data by sectors, regions and districts.

In a nutshell, the two projects were to track the political parties’ achievements in government, make themselves accountable to the people and to enable them draft informed campaign messages. In view of this, the NDC themed the Green Book as accounting to the people, changing lives,transforming Ghana.

Concerns raised on both projects

Ghanaians have subjected both initiatives to strict proof as they pointed out invisible projects published as either completed or ongoing.

Some opposition party activists held press conferences calling out projects published on the tracker website as invisible. Section of the minority also termed it as ‘ghost’ projects.

The tracker website was taken down after the Vice President admitted errors in the infrastructural achievements published on the website but has since been restored.

There were instances where the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, teasingly described claims by the Mahama administration that it undertook unprecedented infrastructural development, as a mere fantasy that was contained in the Green Book of the NDC.

African countries with delivery tracker website

Google search engine shows no results of African countries with such initiative. The only tracker synonymous to all is the COVID-19 tracker which makes Vice President Bawumia’s claim that Ghana is the first to initiate such a project likely to be true.

“As we know, Ghana is the only country in Africa that has implemented this publicly accessible delivery tracker for its infrastructure projects. No other country has done so,” the Vice President had said.