Health Minister Kwabena Mintah Akandoh has disclosed that the Ahanta West Municipal Hospital project at Bokro in the Western Region is still unfinished.
He stated: “As we speak, we need to cough up not less than $9 million for this project, which is about GH¢140 million. Completing the project is one thing, and paying for it is another thing. The operation of a hospital is not just the brick and mortar.”
In a conversation with reporters last Friday, Mr. Akandoh revealed these following an inspection of the Ahanta West Municipal Hospital project, one of the Agenda 111 projects started by the NPP government.
Joseph Nelson, the Western Regional Minister, and Prof. Samuel Kaba Akoriyea, the Acting Director General of the Ghana Health Service, joined him.
According to him, the anticipated cost of Agenda 111 projects, which include psychiatric facilities, is approximately $1.9 billion.
Mr. Akandoh recalled that President John Dramani Mahama had noted that “if they had rolled out the projects in phases, that amount could have completed not less than 22 of hospitals.” He said that by the time the NPP government left office, it had spent at least $400 million on the projects.
Once more, the minister stated, “We have expended $400 million. We don’t have a single one of these projects in operation. Basically, we have visited about two others, and the Bokro project is another one commissioned on December 5, 2024. We owe only one of the contractors $3 million.”
He also listed some departments (facilities), such as unfinished theaters and laboratories, and made the case that “you cannot commission a project like a hospital without equipment being installed.”
Mr. Akandoh stated that “any government will first and foremost think about the source of funding for such projects” due to the ambitious nature of Agenda 111 initiatives.
“Once you are leaving behind the uncompleted projects, you leave money for their completion. We don’t have a pesewa as I speak to finish this project because there was no reliable and dedicated source of funding,” he added.
In addition to making sure “we put these facilities to good use to benefit the good people of this country,” the minister said President John Mahama had given the Ministry of Health instructions to think creatively, evaluate all of the agenda 111 projects, and provide him (the President) with a blueprint for the future.
Source: newsthemegh.com