National Organiser of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Henry Nana Boakye, popularly known as Nana B, has defended the previous Akufo-Addo administration’s handling of the Afari Hospital project, insisting the current government should focus on completing the facility instead of politicising it.
Speaking on Asempa FM’s Ekosii Sen programme, Nana B said the project made significant progress under the NPP government and questioned why it has yet to be operationalised.
According to him, the Afari Hospital project was initiated during the administration of former President John Agyekum Kufuor but stalled before the NPP returned to power.
“The Afari Hospital project started during President Kufuor’s time. When we took over, it was around 30 per cent complete and during Nana Akufo-Addo’s time all the reports indicated that it had reached about 90 per cent completion,” he said.
He argued that the current National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration should have been able to complete the remaining works and commission the facility.
“My difficulty with the government now is that I don’t know whether they feel that because Nana Akufo-Addo did it, they don’t want to commission it,” he stated.
Nana B also criticised what he described as attempts to politicise the Agenda 111 hospital programme.
“I don’t know why they want to politicise Agenda 111. It was a very ambitious project which President John Dramani Mahama described as too ambitious,” he said.
He questioned what he described as inconsistency in the government’s position, noting that President Mahama has since launched other large-scale infrastructure projects.
“His government is now constructing about 200 market projects at a go and cutting sod for them. So how can you say you want to be ambitious but seek to pull down someone else’s ambition of building hospitals?” he asked.
Nana B stressed that healthcare infrastructure should not become a partisan issue, as such projects are meant to benefit all Ghanaians.
“This is something we should all support,” he said.
According to him, only civil works remained on the Afari Hospital project when the NPP left office, making it possible for the current administration to complete it within a short period.
“The Afari Hospital we left only needed the civil works to be completed, so this government should have been able to finish that,” he stated.
He further disclosed that several Agenda 111 projects across the country were between 70 and 80 per cent complete before the change in government.
“A lot of the Agenda 111 projects were 70 to 80 per cent complete,” he noted.
He urged the government to prioritise completing ongoing hospital projects instead of embarking on new ones that could also remain unfinished.
“The hospital projects shouldn’t be politicised. Government should try to fund and complete them instead of starting new hospitals that may also end up uncompleted,” he added.
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