The Member of Parliament for Agotime Ziope Charles Kwasi Agbeve who is also a member of the parliamentary health committee has revealed that the government lacks funds to build all the Agender 111 projects as promised by the government.
Speaking on Plan B FM’s morning show NKOSUOANSEM hosted by Nana Yaw Abrompah, the NDC legislature stressed that an amount of $1.44 billion was budgeted to complete the projects but only $217millions has been disbursed so far.
He said the financial project proposal from the Agenda 111 Secretariat financial proposal for the completion of these hospitals is a shortfall of funding to complete all these projects. Though all the funding for the commencement of the project is coming from the oil fund the counterpart fund from the government is always been delayed and it’s always in arrears.
It’s very strange and surprising that the Agenda 111 Secretariat is still holding a lot of decisions on the health projects which are going through a lot of domestic and international financial funding to complete these projects which have been delayed as a result of domestic debt management.
“Putting up the structure that has to do with the block work does not complete the project; since the equipment of medical fittings in all these hospitals will sum up the total cost of all these hospitals, is missing in the financial proposal before health committee in parliament”, He said.
He said that completing these projects in 18 months can best be described as one of the empty political promises from the president. Since all the financial proposal before parliament for the completion of these health facilities has fallen short looking at other financial sources for the projects is not forthcoming.
Consultants and contractors are not regular at the site since payments have been delayed and is likely some of the sites are going to attract additional costs in contract variations.
Meanwhile, President Nana Akufo-Addo has strongly indicated that a significant number of the Agenda 111 hospital projects are set to be commissioned in 2024 – the final year of his administration.
Speaking at the median Physicians and Surgeons Awards, President Akufo-Addo added that his vision is to make Ghana the center of excellent medical care in West Africa by 2030.
“Thus far, the construction of 86 district hospitals, two regional psychiatric hospitals, and the western regional hospital are ongoing which are all at various levels of completion. The average completion rate of the 89 projects is 52 percent. With work at some of the sites at 70 to 80 percent complete.
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