Timeline for Agenda 111 projects overly ambitious – Akufo-Addo
I will commission Agenda 111 projects before leaving – Akufo-Addo
Bawku Central MP, Mahama Ayariga, has indicated that it will be impossible for President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to complete all the 111 health facilities under Agenda 111 programme before his term of office ends.
The MP (Member of Parliament) said that President Akufo-Addo will commission at most two facilities under the project before leaving office on January 7, 2025, myjoyonline.com reports.
Ayariya explained that the president cannot complete 111 facilities because even though they formed part of the measures to bolster the country’s health infrastructure to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic none of them have been completed to date.
“The President says he will commission them before leaving office. I know for sure this won’t happen. If anything at all, one or two of them may be successfully commissioned. Agenda 111 was announced as part of measures to deal with the Covid-19 problem [but] as we speak, I haven’t seen any of these hospitals,
“The last time the Ministers in charge were asked about the projects, they were talking about procuring land in some communities for these hospitals. It took the Ministers two or three years since the announcement of the policy for them to even get the land to construct when every chief is scrambling for hospitals in his jurisdiction, but this government managed to take years just to secure the land,” the MP is quoted.
The Agenda 111 project includes the construction of 101 district hospitals, six regional hospitals in the newly created regions, two specialised hospitals as well as a regional hospital in the Western Region and the renovation of the Effia-Nkwanta Regional Hospital.
Akufo-Addo, at the beginning of his second term as president, promised that all the projects under Agenda 111 will be completed in 18 months.
However, speaking at the 2022 State of the Nation Address the President admitted that the initial plan by his government to construct a total of 111 health facilities across the country was overly ambitious.
He explained that the construction of the projects has been faced with unforeseen challenges that slowed the process of getting the projects underway.
President Akufo-Addo however said that the hurdles on most of those sites have been resolved and work has so far begun on 87 of those hospital projects across the country, adding that all the projects will be completed with be completed before he leaves office.
Watch the comments the president made on the Agenda 111 below:
Bawku Central MP, Mahama Ayariga