A fellow at the Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), Dr. Kwame Sarpong Asiedu, has raised concerns over inconsistencies in the financial figures surrounding the Agenda 111 hospital project.
According to him, the numbers presented by both the current and former governments do not align, making it difficult to trust official reports.
“It’s important that we get to the bottom of this. This whole thing is funny,” he stated, stressing that the original budget presented to the Parliamentary Select Committee was approximately 1.3 billion.
However, he noted that the former Presidential Advisor on Health under the Akufo-Addo administration, Dr. Anthony Nsiah-Asare has suggested that the amount required to complete the project exceeds this initial budget.
Dr. Asiedu further questioned the figures presented in the handing-over notes, which stated that the average cost of each hospital was $18 million.
“If you go into the handing over notes, which all of them are referring to, they say the average cost of the property is 18 million US dollars. If you multiply that by 111, you get 1.998.
“If you take out 400,000, it comes to 1.588, that is different from what Dr Nsiah Asare is quoting himself. Meanwhile, he quotes 18 million US dollars per hospital. So how am I to believe him?”
He also pointed out a discrepancy in the former Minister of Health’s statement, which claimed that 7.65 billion was needed to complete the project.
“That was why on the 18th of December, I wrote to the then President-elect, because I saw all these things coming, and I saw that the previous government had been very disingenuous, and all the figures didn’t add up.”
Dr. Asiedu stated that he had documented every figure the previous government used, citing official sources such as budget reports, parliamentary records, and ministerial statements.
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