The Minister for Health, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, has attributed the delay in commissioning the Weija Paediatric Hospital to the contractor’s failure to complete outstanding works and formally hand over the facility to the Ministry of Health.

Speaking in Parliament on Tuesday, July 7, the Minister rejected claims that the government was intentionally delaying the opening of the hospital, insisting that the facility is not yet ready for operations because key contractual obligations remain unresolved.

Mr. Akandoh said the Ministry has already prepared the necessary human resources required to operate the hospital and is ready to commence service delivery immediately after the official handover of the facility.

“We have on standby the full complement of staff for the facility,” he told Parliament.

He disclosed that the Ministry has engaged the contractor on several occasions to address outstanding concerns and is expected to hold a final meeting with the contractor on Thursday, July 10, following a request by the contractor to attend the discussions personally.

“The contractor is not in the country at the moment. We have invited him and on the 10th was his request that he would be available personally for us to conclude on the matters,” he said.

The Health Minister explained that although some medical equipment has been installed at the facility, other equipment is yet to be installed, while access to some installed equipment remains unavailable because the contractor has not provided the required access codes.

“When we send the Ghana Health Service staff to the facility, there are equipment that have not been installed and there are others that have been installed but we don’t have complete access and the project has not been handed over to the Ministry,” he said.

Mr. Akandoh stressed that the Ministry is working with the contractor to resolve the remaining issues and complete the handover process, assuring that the government will immediately proceed with commissioning once the facility is officially transferred.

“If the project is handed over this morning, in the next 24 hours, we don’t even need to do any fanfare, we will commission the project because we have a full complement of staffing for that particular facility,” he said.

He maintained that reports suggesting the Weija Paediatric Hospital has been completed and is only awaiting commissioning are inaccurate, noting that the project must first satisfy all contractual requirements before it can be fully operationalised.