We’ll mobilise funds to construct La Gen Hospital – La youth

The Coalition of La Youth Association has hinted at plans to mobilise resources to construct the La General Hospital.

This comes after Majority Leader Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu stated that funds for the reconstruction of the La general hospital have been withheld by sponsors due to Ghana’s current economic crisis.

Speaking on the Class Morning Show, on Wednesday, 8 November 2023, spokesperson for the La Youth Association, Jeffery Tetteh, explained to show host Kwame Dwomoh Agyemang, how the association intends to raise funds for the reconstruction of the hospital.

“There are about 90 clan houses in La. Which means every Sunday there’s more like a social gathering and we’re able to raise monies to do social activities for ourselves, every clan house. Assuming out of the 90 clan houses every house is providing one trip of sand, 1 trip of stones, 50 bags of cement maybe 1000 pieces of cement blocks and then some cash to support and then 90 clan houses, just put this calculation together and see how much we’ll be able to raise.

“We have done our survey and we have a lot of our people who are ready to come in with funding and support and that is how we’re going to engage a contractor with the funding we’re going to get from our brothers from the diaspora to now bring in the heavy equipment that will be used to do the construction and this is simply how we’re going to do it. I tell you we’ll be able to construct the hospital the same plan they have with less than the 68 Euros.”

He noted that all this was contained in the group’s petition to the Minister of Health since April, however, it is yet to receive feedback.

The spokesperson further also expressed disappointment with the Regional Minister, Henry Quartey, for not pushing hard enough for the reconstruction of the hospital.

“My biggest disappoint is the Regional Minister who partially hails from La, who touts himself as a champion of Ga-Dangbeme who has refused to even make any statement on this La-General hospital issue.”

He added: “We’re not asking him to provide money, I think he should be the one who should be pushing, not even us he should be the one, we should see him in Parliament making statements, we should see him going to the Presidency and talking about it, we should see him talking to the Minister of Health and pushing hard for something to be done, we should see him lead the minister to the traditional authorities to apologise and then give them a plan as to how they’re going to do it.”

Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, the Majority Leader in Parliament, on Tuesday, 7 November 2023, shed light on the delay in reconstructing the La General Hospital in Accra, attributing it to the withholding of funds by the sponsors of the project.

Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu clarified that these sponsors had held back the funds due to Ghana's engagement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

“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,” he explained.

He also noted that the release of funds would be contingent on Ghana receiving a clean bill of health from the IMF, and in light of this, the government is considering incorporating the hospital project within the framework of Agenda 111, which may necessitate a scaled-down approach.

The La General Hospital, which faced severe structural problems, was demolished in July 2020.

The conflicting views and threats of protests underline the heightened tensions surrounding the much-needed reconstruction of the facility, with both the Minority and Majority expressing their concerns and positions on the matter.