Agenda 111: Where are the hospitals? – Minority Leader asks government
The Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu, has asked government to make public the status of hospitals being constructed under the Agenda 111 initiative.
In an interview on the Super Morning Show on Thursday, he said it would be necessary for government to account for the various expenses being made about the projects to satisfy the curiosity of many Ghanaians.
The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, told Parliament on Wednesday, June 22, that government had released ¢600 million to begin the construction of the hospitals.
But Mr Iddrisu believes there are no hospitals to account for the said amount released for their construction.
“So beyond the headline, where are the hospitals, where are they situated, how much was dedicated to the beginning of the process. How much has so far been spent on that project? We want to know the status of implementation,” he said.
Delivering an address on government’s Covid-19 expenditure in Parliament, Mr Ofori-Atta stated that in the wake of the pandemic, government took a bold decision to provide health infrastructure in the districts and regions that did not have a district or regional hospital.”
“In all, 111 District, Regional and Mental Hospitals (Agenda 111) were programmed for construction” with a total of ¢600 million allocated for that cause.
In addition, “an amount of ¢779.05 million was programmed [in 2021] for the continuation of the Agenda 111 projects. Out of this, an amount of ¢763.92 million has been released.”
But in a reaction to this, Mr Iddrisu has asked government to render a thorough account of how these sums of money have been spent.
“Arguably, if you are to use the exchange rate of 2020/2021, the ¢600 million probably will come to a $100 million and this should be able to complete at least minimum, if you are using $40 million, we should have seen two district hospitals completed.”
He further noted that given the figures provided by the Finance Minister, the government has so far spent ¢1.3 billion on Agenda 111.
“Ghanaians want to know, where are those projects? Are contractors even at the site? I can tell you without fear of contradiction that they just mobilised party activists, gave them money in the name of mobilisation but many of them are not at the construction site,” he added.
Source: Ghana News
