Funds for reconstruction of La General Hospital withheld by sponsors, hence delay – Majority Leader explains

The Majority Leader in Parliament, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, has said that the sponsors behind the reconstruction of the La General Hospital have held back funds for the project, hence the reason for the delay.

In a report by citinewsroom.com, Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu explained that the sponsors halted the funds following Ghana's engagement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2022.

“Mr. Speaker, what has happened is that after the engagement with the IMF, funding from those sources that Parliament approved of, the funding has been withheld by the sponsors.

“Mr. Speaker, until the nation is given a clean bill on health by the IMF, it is going to be difficult for the funding to be released. This is why the government now wants to situate it within the context of Agenda 111, and that will mean that the facility will have to be scaled down a bit,” he said.

The La General Hospital faced demolition in July 2020 due to significant structural issues reported by the hospital's management.

Although the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, initiated the construction of the La General Hospital Redevelopment Project on August 10, 2020, construction has not yet commenced.

Background

The Minister of Health, Kwaku Agyemang-Manu, in a GhanaWeb report on September 8, 2023, disclosed that work on the La General Hospital will begin soon.

According to him, processes were being finalised to secure funds for the commencement of the project.

Agyemang-Manu stressed that the La General Hospital will surely be constructed.

“We got funding, unfortunately, something happened, we couldn’t continue that way, and we got stuck there. For La, for example, we started working seriously on La, and we still have contractors’ materials sitting on site. We are now shifting the source of funding. We have virtually completed negotiations…Very soon. La will come back on stream,” he stated.

Ghana’s leading digital news platform, GhanaWeb, in conjunction with the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, is embarking on an aggressive campaign which is geared towards ensuring that parliament passes comprehensive legislation to guide organ harvesting, organ donation, and organ transplantation in the country.

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