Deputy Health Minister Alex Kodwo Abban has admonished members of the opposition NDC, particularly Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, minority ranking member of the select committee on health, to desist from scoring cheap political points with the issue of abandoned health projects across the country.
According to him, although some health projects from the erstwhile Mahama administration have not been completed, they cannot be tagged as abandoned.
He says the Akufo-Addo-led administration has made progress with discussions geared towards the completion of such projects.
“I don’t know what kind of political capital Mr Akandoh seeks to create by harping on this matter almost every opportunity that he gets with the media. Please, he is very much aware that the minister for health has gone round all these health facilities to make sure that resumption of work is quickly done…,” he said.
“In any case, it’s not as though we came and we truncated existing contracts, we had problems which have been dealt…so please there have not been any abandoned projects. All those projects if he cares to know, we have had discussions with the contractors and everything is set for all the things to be done,” the deputy minister added.
This was in reaction to remarks by the ranking member of the select committee on health, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, on the effects such abandoned projects had on unemployment in the country, particularly with respect to some graduate nurses.
Mr Akandoh, at a joint press conference held by the minority and the Graduate Unemployed Nurses and Midwives Association (GUNMA) said, “The health ministry is a very sensitive one and so policies and programs in the sector should be a holistic one. To be able to employ more nurses and midwives and to provide better health care deliver means expanding the infrastructure in the health sector, hence the investment of over I billion USD in the health sector by the previous Mahama administration.”
“We will therefore at this point call on the president to expedite action on the uncompleted and abandoned health facilities littered across the country and also make the already completed ones fully operational. This will result in the creation of more vacancies to be able to absorb the unemployed nurses.”
However, the deputy health minister, while reacting to this said, amassing political points with such issues, amounts to no good because government has already indicated his commitment to completing the projects.
Mr Abban was speaking in an interaction with the media, October 24, 2019, after Parliamentary proceedings.
Some of the reported abandoned health projects include, a 120-bed Kumawu District Hospital and Adansi-Fomena District Hospital, the Euroget Six District Hospitals project each with 60-bed capacity - Tepa, Nsawkaw, Konongo, Madina, Salaga and Twifo Praso - which cost $ 339 million the Euroget Six District Hospitals project each with 60-bed capacity - Tepa, Nsawkaw, Konongo, Madina, Salaga and Twifo Praso which cost $ 339 million.
