There was an exchange on Metro TV’s Good Morning Ghana on August 26, 2024, between Minister of Information Fatimatu Abubakar and Professor Grace Ayensu-Danquah, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Parliamentary Candidate for Essikado-Ketan Constituency.
The exchange centered on which administration constructed the Afari Military Hospital in the Ashanti Region.
The debate was sparked after the Minister of Information while contributing to the show, stated that the hospital is a legacy of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration.
She argued that the governing party constructed it as part of the 9 Euroget projects.
However, Professor Grace did not agree with the minister’s assertion, claiming that the hospital was fully completed by the erstwhile National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration, led by former president John Dramani Mahama, who also serves as the NDC's flagbearer for the 2024 elections.
She argued that the current administration, under the leadership of the NPP, refused to open the facility for public use due to politicization.
“So, she comes here with a whole bunch of documents to misinform the people. They have no shame and they have no remourse. All they are trying to do is to throw more dust into the eyes of the Ghanaian people who are now suffering.
“A simple Google search will show you who built the Afari hospital. Google it, and let your people show it on TV. Afari Hospital was completely built and finished before President Mahama left office, before President Mahama left office, Afari Hospital was completed,” she stated.
The NDC professor continued, “They neglected it in the bush, and we in the health industry have been talking about this since 2017. It is just the same thing they did with the UGMC.
“Just open the hospital for the Ghanaian people, but because John Mahama built it, Akufo-Addo didn’t want to open it, and Bawumia, the mate, also didn’t want to open it. People have died because of the neglect of this hospital, and today you have the temerity and the audacity to come and tell us that you built Afari Hospital.
“A simple Google search. A whole Minister of Information disgracefully sitting on a programme like this telling us that Afari Hospital was built by Akufo-Addo. Do you see where we are now?
“The point I am making is that there is no need to argue or counter-argue because the facts speak for themselves. Mahama built the full hospital about seven or eight years ago.”
The minister countered her argument, maintaining that insults would not deter her from discussing the facts.
“No amount of insults can change the facts. I am not moved by it. The so-called information minister, whatever, I don’t care.
“The facts remain the facts, and I believe if you had a research team behind the scenes, they would have confirmed what I have said, that Afari Hospital is one of the Euroget projects constructed in 2008.
“Former President Mahama did not complete it. Nobody in Ghana has laid such a claim, so, it is strange that this morning she said that. It was President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo who completed the project.
“I have told you no amount of insults will distract me. The books will come. Next time I will prepare a folder for her because clearly she is not reading. If she was reading, she would have known that Afari Hospital is one of the 9 Euroget projects which were contracted in 2008,” she said.
Supporting facts
According to a graphiconline.com publication on June 9, 2022, the Afari Military Hospital is one of the nine hospitals awarded to Euroget, an Egyptian investment company, for construction in the country.
The company has already completed and handed over five of those nine hospitals, the Wa Regional Hospital in the Upper West Region, the Ga East Municipal Hospital at Kwabenya in the Greater Accra Region, the Ahafo Ano North Municipal Hospital at Tepa in the Ashanti Region, the Tain District Hospital in the Bono Region, and the Twifo-Atti-Morkwa District Hospital at Twifo Praso in the Central Region.
It will become Ghana's second military hospital after the 37 Military Hospital in Accra to complement the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital as the chief referral medical facilities in the Ashanti Region and the rest of the middle sector.
The construction of the hospital began under the leadership of former President John Agyekum Kufuor and is yet to be commissioned by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
TWI NEWS
Watch the exchange from 1:40:00minutes
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