A motion has moved in Parliament for the approval of a €38,928,898 loan to finance the construction and equipping of 40-bed district hospitals at Ayensuano, Effiduase, and Offinso in the Eastern and Ashanti regions respectively.
Part of the money will also be used to complete and equip the Old Tafo and Kumasi South maternity blocks.
The motion was moved by the Finance Committee Chairman, Kwaku Agyeman Kwarteng, and was seconded by the Ranking Member, Dr. Ato Forson.
The term loan facility agreement is between the Government of Ghana and the Deutsche Bank AG, Frankfurt (as Arranger and Original Lender), as well as the TMF Global Service (UK) Limited (as Facility Agent).
The agreement was presented to the House on Monday, December 20, 2021 in accordance with Article 181 of the Constitution and Section 56 of the Public Financial Management Act, 2016, Act 921.
The government said the increasing rate of population growth across the country has exerted enormous pressure on the existing health facilities, stretching them beyond their operational limits and thereby resulted in an increase in outpatient visits to the various hospitals in all the regions of Ghana.
However, programmes to address health infrastructure development, on the other hand, have not kept pace with the growing demand for health services as a result of increasing rate of population growth in the country, it stated.
The government said the overall objective of the project is to increase access to healthcare delivery through expanding the capacity of existing health facilities and provision of new facilities in the districts with limited access to health infrastructure.
The Finance Ministry indicated that a successful implementation of the project would result in increasing access to health services through the construction and equipping of three additional 40-bed district hospitals in three districts.
“The project also intends to revamp, retool and supply hospital equipment to selected hospitals. Also, part of the project fund would be applied to renovate and revamp existing structures in the selected hospitals and for procurement and installation of medical equipment and other accessories in the five facilities,” it said.
By Ernest Kofi Adu, Parliament House
