Mr Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, the Minister for Health, says the government will need about GHS140 million to fully equip and operationalise the Ahanta West Municipal Hospital under the Agenda 111 project at Bokoro in the Western Region.
The Hospital, which started under the erstwhile New Patriotic Party (NPP) government, had remained non-functional after three months of commissioning.
Mr Akandoh, who toured the project site to assess the state of the facility, told journalists that the Hospital was uncompleted for use and that government needed to raise additional funds to fully equip and operationalise the facility.
He said: “As we speak, we need to cough not less than $9 million for this, which is about GHC140 million.
“Completing the project is one thing, and paying for it, is another thing because the operation of a hospital is not just the brick and mortar.”
He stated that the Agenda 111 project was estimated to cost about $1.9 billion, but none of them had been completed and operationalised.
“We have expended 400 million US dollars, but do not have one of these projects in operation.
“Basically, we have visited about two others and the Bokoro project is another one commissioned that has not been in operation,” Mr Akandoh added.
The Health Minister continued: “Once you are leaving behind the uncompleted project, you leave money for the completion, and we do not have a pesewa as I speak to you now to finish this project, because there was no reliable and dedicated source of funding.”
He, however, said his ministry had been tasked to assess all the Agenda 111 projects nationwide and devise strategies to complete and put them to good use to cater for the health needs of the people.
Mr Akandoh said: “This is what we have inherited, but whatever it is, we must put it to good use, and that is what is important because we cannot let this facility go waste, and so this will come up in our reports.”
-GNA
