President Akufo-Addo and Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia are expected to soon embark on a sod-cutting exercise to begin government’s promised “Agenda 111” initiative.

This is according to the Presidential Advisor on Health, Dr. Anthony Nsiah Asare, who was speaking on LUV FMs, Luv-In-The Morning Show with host, David Akuetteh.

His revelation comes on the back of questions raised by majority of citizens about the whereabouts of the eighty-eight (88) new district hospitals the president promised.

President Akufo-Addo in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic promised to complete the project in a year, during a national update on Covid-19 last April.

“I know all the district hospitals drawing have been done and awards have been given to some contractors and we’ll be meeting them this week. We want to move the process forward and so very soon you’ll see His Excellency and the Vice President going round cutting the sod for the work."

He continued that, “Government wants to construct 100-bed capacity district hospitals in all districts without hospitals.”

According to him, the government did a quick survey and found that a lot of the 260 districts don’t have any hospitals at all. He assured Ghanaians, of government’s strategy to improve health care delivery and its infrastructure across the country.

“The government is putting up 101 hospitals across Ghana and secondly the government is putting up a secondary facility, that is regional hospitals in all the new regions created and a new one at the Western region and convert the Effia Nkwanta Hospital into a metropolitan one.”

He continued that, “Government is going to construct two psychiatrist hospitals; one to serve the middle belt and one to serve the northern belt and so this makes the Agenda 111.”

Mr Nsiah Asare meanwhile explained that no block had been laid for the foundation of these health facilities, adding that the one-year completion statement made by the President, only meant that the projects would commence after official sod-cutting was done.

“The President said that the project will be completed within one year and that is from the date that the sod is cut. It will take twelve (12) months for the district hospitals to finish and hopefully we want to also use two (2) years to finish the regional hospitals.

The regional hospitals are more complex than the district hospitals. We just finished the budget, it was read, accepted and approved by Parliament at the end of March and that is the reason why I said, we will be moving to site as soon as possible.”

Dr Nsiah Asare further told David Akuetteh that the surveyors and contractors who had done the various site engineering were duly advising the committee in charge of ‘Agenda 111’ on the relevant steps and recommendations.