Deputy Defence Minister, Hon. Kofi Amankwah-Manu has denied media reports that the hospital project at Afari started under the NDC government has been abandoned and stressed workers are still at site and working on the facility.
The project, he said, was unavoidably delayed because of the decision to relocate it, which led to the state incurring some cost of US$36 million to the contract, which is yet to be paid.
According to him, the Defence Minister, Dominic Nitiwul, together with the consultants on the project, however, negotiated with the contractor to bring it down to $19 million, which the Finance Ministry is conducting value for money on.
He challenged TV3 and Onua TV of the Media General to join a tour of the project site with all expenses paid to carry out a live broadcast to expose those lying about the project to Ghanaians.
Hon. Kofi Amankwah-Manu who addressed the controversy, claims and counter-claims on the progress of the project narrated that the Afari hospital project was conceived in 2008 during the latter part of former President John Agyekum Kufuor’s administration and under the leadership of Hon. Kan Dapaah as the Defence Minister.
Parliament, he said, gave approval in November 2008 for the 500-bed-capacity hospital to be constructed at Sofoline in Kumasi at a cost of US$180 million.
He said, “However, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) lost power to the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in 2008. When NDC came to power, they decided to change the original site of the project to Tamale and we, the NPP Minority in Parliament, objected to the idea.”
“So the project site was again changed from Tamale to the 37 Military Hospital in Accra. A sod-cutting ceremony, for instance, was done for the project to begin at the 37 Military Hospital in August 2010.”
“However, shortly after the project commenced, the contractor was asked to stop work because a new location had been found for the project at Afari.”
“It is important to state that we drafted the contract such that if we changed the site of the location of the hospital, we would have to pay some monies to the contractor,” he added.
According to him, this was done because changing the site affects even the drawings of the project and other technical things including adding to the cost.
The Deputy Defence Minister stated that due to the changes of location of the project, actual work on the hospital really began in 2015 after the land had been prepared for the project in 2014, despite the fact that it should have started in 2008.
The project, he said, is currently 95% complete and hopefully, it will be done before the end of this year.
He disclosed that failure to pay the additional cost due to the relocation of the project affected the speed of the contractor.
“However, the project has not been abandoned and workers are still at site working on the facility. It is untrue to say that materials such as MRI Machine and CT Scan Machine procured for the hospital have been left at the mercy of the weather on the site to rot.”
“The MRI Machine and CT Scan Machine have not even been transported to the project site at Afari; they are at a bonded warehouse in Tema. The only machines outside the hospital are the air handling and extractor fans — they are outdoor items and are properly covered,” he stated.
Oxygen cylinders at the site, he said, are also in their casings and are being fixed, therefore, it is an absolute lie to claim $38 million worth of items procured for the hospital had been left to rot at the site, and argued items at the site will not even amount to US$1 million.
Source: Mypublisher24.com