President Nana Akufo-Addo says he is determined to complete the Agenda 111 hospital projects before the end of his second term.
In August 2021, President Akufo-Addo cut sod in the Ashanti Region for the construction of new hospital projects in some selected districts, as well as new regional hospitals for the six new regions.
There will also be the construction of two new psychiatric hospitals for the Middle Belt and Northern Belt, respectively, and the rehabilitation of the Effia-Nkwanta Hospital in the Western Region.
But months later, the projects have failed to progress according to plan because there has been no indication of commencement of the projects across the country.
Speaking at the 60th-anniversary celebration of the University of Ghana Medical School, however, Nana Akufo-Addo said he is committed to ensuring the completion of all the projects.
“A great deal of the preparatory work for the execution of this ambitious project has been completed, and it is my determination that the entire project will be completed before I leave office on 7th January 2025”.
The Agenda 111 project is part of a plan by the Akufo-Addo administration to ensure that 101 outstanding districts will be provided with hospitals in addition to 10 selected regional and specialised hospitals.
It is expected to take 18 months to complete from the commencement of each unit, with funding of $100 million from the government through the Ghana Infrastructure Investment Fund (GIIF).
Each of the hospitals will cost $16.88 million, with $12.88 million being used for the construction of the hospitals and $4 million for medical equipment. Some projects to begin in March
67 of the hospitals under the Agenda 111 initiative are to commence by the end of March this year.
A manager at Hospital Infrastructure Group, the project managers for Agenda 111 hospitals, Kwabena Nyarko, gave an update on how the project is panning out as of February 9, 2022.
“We went through a tender process; the contractors have submitted their tender, and they are being evaluated. After this is done, we will run them through a value-for-money process and all the commercial arrangements will go through Parliament.”
“We believe that hopefully by the end of March, we will have at least 67 of these sites that are working on the agenda 111 district hospital projects.”
He noted that each hospital has a completion time of about 18 months, “and the 18 months is from when the project starts from a particular location.”
He also indicated that though they have identified 92 of the sites for commencement of work, land acquisition continues to be a major hindrance.
“There are other areas that as we speak, we still don’t have sites for them, and those are primarily in the Greater Accra Region. For example, in the Nima area, we need 15 acres. There are also some areas where we get the sites from the District assembly but face some issues with traditional authorities.”
“We are looking at some alternatives for places we are struggling to get sites,” he added.
Kwabena Nyarko said the government has paid 138 of the contractors the mobilization fee to begin work.
“The plan is to pay the contractors some mobilization. 10% of their contract sums will be paid as advanced mobilization. 139 of those have been paid. We are mobilizing to site.”
“Some of them have actually started work. I have a list of at least 10 sites where work has actually started.”
