Ranking member for health committee Kwabena Mintah Akandoh
The Minority in Parliament has indicated it will file a private members motion to compel government to complete abandoned district hospitals.
Some opposition members on the Select Committee on Health on an unannounced inspection of the gang of 7 district hospitals started by the erstwhile Mahama administration are daring the government to put out a supposed audit of the abandoned health facilities implicating any past government official.
Juaboso Lawmaker, Kwabena Minkah Anakdonh told TV3 after an inspection of some of the uncompleted projects that “I keep saying there is no other word than today; this is wickedness and causing financial loss to the state. I am quite devastated. You have seen for yourselves very nasty scenes.
“I think that even before they can continue with this project they need a complete assessment of the structures before the can continue. I don’t know why we should get to this level.”
He had earlier described the Akufo-Addo administration as a government full of old people who have no respect for the people of this country.
According to him, if the government respects Ghanaians they would have completed the health projects started by the Mahama administration in order to serve the needs of the governed.
He said this when he led a group of journalists as part of the minority’s nationwide inspection of the abandoned hospitals to inspect the Sekyere Afram Plains district hospital in Kumawu.
The Kumawu and Fomena hospitals are part of seven facilities financed by United Kingdom Export Financing and work was to be completed in 2019 at the cost of 173 million euros.
The government says a total of $38.3 million out of contract sum $175 million was found in the coffers to complete the projects.
The Ranking Member on the health committee in parliament said “What I have seen here is affront to the mandate the good people of this county have given to the president. I think that this government is a group of old men who have no respect for the stakeholders, stakeholders in the governance of this country, they have no respect for the people of this country.
“If for nothing at all, we were here more than two years ago, if the president respects the parliament of this country, at least they would have responded positively.
“We are paying interest on the loan contracted for this purpose meanwhile the people in this country have not benefited from this project.
“This project was awarded somewhere in 2015 which should have been completed by 2017 and we are in 2021 and we are in the weeds. When you talk they will sit in Accra and try to defend.”
The Paramount Chief of the Kumawu Traditional Area, Barima Safo Tweneboah Kodua, lamented the delay in the completion of the Sekyere Afram Plains district hospital.
He said the failure to complete the facility is denying his subjects quality health care.
Barima Safo Tweneboah Kodua said despite a return to the site by a contractor, government has not released funds for the 120 bed project to continue.