Former Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, Dr. Anthony Nsiah-Asare, has defended the previous Akufo-Addo administration’s Agenda 111 hospital projects, insisting the initiative was carefully planned and should not be discontinued by the current government.
Speaking, he explained that the project was designed to be financed in phases, drawing on expected oil revenues and other government income streams.
“You can propose projects based on expected revenue. When you look at the budget and how much oil revenue was expected to come in, it was clear the projects would be completed in phases,” he said.
He argued that the fact that the hospitals were not fully completed before the end of the previous administration was not a sufficient reason to halt them.
“It does not mean that when another government comes into office, they should abandon the projects. I do not agree with that,” he stressed.
Dr. Nsiah-Asare noted that the phased approach was adopted due to limited funds available to complete all facilities at once.
“We did not have enough money to finish all the projects within that period, so we started and moved gradually,” he explained.
According to him, many of the hospitals had reached advanced stages of completion before the change in government, with most projects between 80 and 90 percent complete. He added that three hospitals had already been commissioned prior to the exit of the New Patriotic Party administration.
“If the projects had continued at the same pace, most of them would have been completed by now,” he said.
He also pointed to land acquisition challenges as a major factor that slowed progress on some facilities, particularly in parts of the Greater Accra Region.
“In places like Nima, we struggled for a long time to secure land for construction. It took us almost until the middle of 2024 before the site issues were resolved,” he disclosed.
Dr. Nsiah-Asare further revealed that some contractors had pre-financed portions of the work in anticipation of reimbursement from government funds.
“When we were leaving office, there were certificates worth about 100 million dollars waiting to be paid from the oil-backed funding arrangement,” he said.
He questioned why the current administration had not fully utilised available resources to complete the projects after nearly 17 months in office.
“If the government wanted to continue the projects, most of them would have been completed by now,” he argued.
The former GHS boss also rejected proposals suggesting that private entities or state-owned companies should take over the management of the hospitals, stressing that healthcare delivery is a core responsibility of government.
“The health of the people is the responsibility of every serious government,” he said.
He described Agenda 111 as a bold national intervention aimed at addressing Ghana’s healthcare infrastructure deficit within a shorter timeframe, rather than allowing it to drag on for decades.
“We did not want Ghana to take another hundred years to bridge the healthcare gap, so we took a bold decision to invest oil revenues into major healthcare infrastructure,” he noted.
He compared the initiative to large-scale national projects in countries such as the United Arab Emirates, financed through natural resource revenues, arguing that such developments should transcend political transitions.
“When a new government comes, it inherits both assets and liabilities, so such projects should be continued,” he said.
Dr. Nsiah-Asare also questioned the government’s current development priorities, including the construction of 24-hour markets and new expressway projects, suggesting that unfinished health facilities should take precedence.
He further referenced delays in the dualisation of the Accra–Kumasi highway, arguing that incomplete road projects continue to contribute to road safety challenges.
“If you come into government, you must have a vision and pursue bold policies for national development,” he added.