We Have Challenges With Agenda 111 Projects - Health Minister

Kwaku Agyemang-Manu, Minister of Health

Health Minister, Kwaku Agyeman Manu, has said government is facing some challenges with regards to the implementation of their Agenda 111 project.

According to him, there are some challenges in the district and cities – challenges including land litigation as people are demanding compensation.

“We still have challenges [with the Agenda 111 projects], especially in the big cities. We are changing the infrastructure designs. Even in the communities and the districts, there are litigations in some areas where the DCEs have donated lands and people are asking for compensation,” citinewsroom quoted the health minister as having said.

He however added that government is working hard to ensure these challenges are resolved.

“At the appropriate time, we will see how best we are moving along with this. It is too early to predict whether we will finish or not, but optimistically that is what we want to do, and we will try to push ourselves. We will be able to do a proper assessment by the end of the year,” he said.

Agenda 111

This is a project by government to provide more facilities to bridge the current burden on some health facilities across the country. The programme involves the construction of hospitals in districts where there are none, including the establishment of two psychiatric hospitals for the middle and the southern belts, seven regional hospitals and the rehabilitation of the Accra Psychiatric Hospital.

In August 2021, the government announced that it had secured a US$100-million start-up fund through the Ghana Investment Infrastructure Fund (GIIF) for the commencement of work on the projects.

The Minister of Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, also said a project implementation committee, chaired by the Chief of Staff, Akosua Frema Osei Opare, had secured sites and land titles for 88 out of the number of hospitals to be built, and that each unit would cost US$17 million, while each hospital was expected to be completed within 12 months.

And during the presentation of the 2022 budget by the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, in Parliament last November, he indicated that work had begun on some of the hospitals, and that, “cadastral plans for 91 district hospital sites have been completed and work has begun at a number of sites.”

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