We’ve not abandoned Mahama’s health projects – Oppong Nkrumah

Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has allayed suggestions from a section of Ghanaians and the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) that the Akufo-Addo government has abandoned health projects started under the Mahama administration.

According to him, such projects have not been ignored neither have they been side-lined in the governance process under President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

However, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah cited the financing regime around such projects as the main reason why they remain uncompleted.

He was quick to note that some of the health projects in question date as far back as former President John Agyekum Kufuor’s administration.

“…Some of these projects were even started during former President John Agyekum Kufuor’s time and it wasn’t completed in the 8 years not because the government was wicked and sought to abandon them but the module financing around them is the problem,” Oppong Nkrumah posited.

The conversation about the health projects was resurrected after President Akufo-Addo, in his latest address on coronavirus preventive measures, projected plans for heavy investment in the health sector.

President Akufo-Addo announced plans to begin construction of “88 hospitals in the districts without hospitals….Each of them will be a quality, standard design 100-bed hospital with accommodation for doctors, nurses and other health workers and the intention is to complete them within a year… and the construction of six new regional hospitals in the six new regions and the rehabilitation of the Efia Nkwanta Hospital in Sekondi...”

This latest promise has been branded unrealistic by some members of the opposition party who claimed that some health projects which commenced under the Mahama administration are rotting away while new ideas are being projected.

The Information Minister while addressing related concerns on Citi FM indicated that the health projects which started under the erstwhile administration remain “work in progress”.

He said; “The unfinished hospitals largely remain work in progress and we will give an update on where we picked them from and how far we have come with them. There are some that we have finished and opened up, some are near completion and some have gotten into financial and contracting difficulties because of some issues associated with them. We will also give dates on when those in progress will be finished. It is to make the point that, some may be uncompleted still but they are not abandoned, it is work in progress, it will be finished by a particular time.”

Meanwhile, former President John Dramani Mahama has on several occasions cried foul about the seeming abandonment of health projects which he started during his tenure as president.