Former President of Ghana, John Dramani Mahama
The Akufo-Addo-led government’s Agenda 111 is an afterthought with no transparency as far as funding is concerned, former President John Dramani Mahama has said.
The government, on Tuesday, August 17, 2021, launched the Agenda 111 project in the Ashanti region.
Each of the 111 hospitals will cost $16.88 million and will be completed in 18 months.
Laying the brick for the project to begin on Tuesday, 17 August 2021, at Trede in the Atwima Kwanwoma District of the Ashanti Region, President Akufo-Addo said: “So far, sites have been identified for 88 of the 111 hospitals and after cutting the sod, work on the other 87 sites will also commence today.”
“The acquisition of the remaining 13 sites will be completed shortly for work to begin”, he noted.
But speaking on Bolgatanga-based URA Radio, as part of his ‘Thank You’ tour on the same day, Mr Mahama said the government has increased the public debt but has no infrastructure to show for it.
He said the monies borrowed has gone into consumption and the government realising that Ghanaians are asking what the monies have been used for has decided to draw up the Agenda 111 plan.
He said, four years after he left office, “you are witnesses to what has happened: from GHS120 billion of total public debt, today, we are almost hitting GHS400 billion public debt and what most Ghanaians ask is: ‘What have we done with that money?’ It looks like most of them have gone into consumption rather than into providing the country with the kind of infrastructure that we need”.
“It’s only as an afterthought that suddenly they realised we must be doing some infrastructure, so, Agenda 111 has been drawn. There’s no transparency [about] how the money is going to be procured and all that,” Mr Mahama said.
“Is it going to lead into more borrowing when we already have a high level of debt hanging around the country’s neck? So, these are things that we could build consensus around if they were prepared to open up and involve everybody in doing so but it doesn’t look like they are prepared to do so,” he added.