Minority in Parliament has described as bizarre, government’s explanation on how the GH¢600 million was set aside for Agenda 111.

This comes after the Ministry of Finance denied claims by the Minority in Parliament that the government has already spent GH¢636million on Agenda 111 even before it was launched on Tuesday, August 17, 2021.

In a press release issued by Public Relations Unit, the Ministry admitted that in 2020, an amount of GH¢600million was released into the Health Infrastructure Account at Bank of Ghana (BoG) to support the implementation of the District and Regional Hospitals Projects.

The Finance Ministry said contrary to the claims “the said amount had been released into the project account at the BOG but not utilised yet. Project commencement has just begun. So far, only GH¢36million has been released as part of pre-construction mobilisation,” the statement dated August, 19, explained.

However, the Parliamentarians of the NDC, led by Ranking Member on Parliament’s Health Committee, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, believe that the explanations on the whereabouts of the money leads to a conclusion that the government is hiding the truth about the GH₵600 million expenditure.

“We find the explanations on the GH₵600million expenditure rather bizarre, to say the least. The statement is alarming in that, it raises even more concerns about the chain of custody of the GH₵600 million allocated for AGENDA 111 projects. From all the contradictions, it may be that the GH₵600 million is Missing,” parts of the statement read.

Mr Akandoh raised five questions about the expenditure including, when the GHC600 million was allocated to Agenda 111, which agency of government is implementing Agenda 111, and what has been the chain of custody of the funds since they left the Consolidated Accounts at the BoG.

To ascertain the accuracy of the Finance Ministry’s statement, he called on the Auditor General to constitute an audit team, involving the services of a reputable international Audit Firm, to audit the processes leading to the supposed transfer and the expenditure of the GH₵600 million.

“We also wish to serve notice that, if the Auditor General fails to Act within 2 weeks, we will have no option than to start the processes of collecting enough signatures from Members of Parliament to trigger a recall of Parliament so that a committee of Parliament can investigate the Missing GH₵600 million from the consolidated fund.”

Agenda 111

The government on Tuesday, August 17, launched its ambitious Agenda 111 policy.

The project will cover the design, procurement, construction, equipping and commissioning of 101 District Hospitals, 6 Regional Hospitals in newly created regions, as well as 1 Regional Hospital in the Western Region, 2 Psychiatric Hospitals in Kumasi and Tamale and a redeveloped Accra Psychiatric Hospital.

President Akufo-Addo together with some government officials broke grounds for the commencement of the project at Trede in the Ashanti Region.

The project when completed in 18 months, will deliver to each underserved district, a world-class health facility capable of attending to all major ailments.