President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, in his 8th nation address on COVID-19, announced plans to construct 88 new district hospitals and six new regional hospitals within a year.
In a breakdown of the hospitals to be built, he said 10 will be in the Ashanti region, nine in the Volta region, nine in the Central region, eight in the Eastern Region, and seven in the Greater Accra region.
Also, seven of the hospitals will be built in Upper East, five each in the Northern, Oti, Upper West, and the Bono regions, while four will be built in the Western North and Western regions.
Meanwhile, the Ahafo and Savannah regions will have three district hospitals, two in Bono East, and two more in North East Regions.
Although a section of Ghanaians have lauded the initiative, many are in doubt of the feasibility of the project within the stipulated period.
Another major concern raised was why government will not focus on the several abandoned projects littered across the country but proceed to spring up new ones.
The MP explaining the alarm by the citizenry said, “Because when a government abandons a project, it becomes cost for the people of Ghana. That is a drain from the public purse of the people of Ghana and that is why the people of Ghana are concerned.”
He further argued, “…when you quantify the amount of resources that have been put into abandoned projects, which are serving no useful purpose, then you ask yourself was it money well spent? Couldn’t this money be used for purposes which will be relevant to our present well-being? Then we have to undertake these projects and that’s why we are worried.”
The MP backed his assertion noting that the fundamentals underlying the 2020 budget have been “challenged so dramatically” that the Health Minister wanted Parliament to give him an opportunity to take 219 million from the Stabilisation Fund.
To Inusah Fuseini, this could have been avoided if government had followed the directive principles of state policies which makes it clear that succeeding governments, as much as possible, should continue projects initiated by their predecessor governments.
Inusah Fuseini, Tamale Central MP