The New Patriotic Party (NPP), the political party that has produced the Akufo-Addo-Bawumia government, is riding on the back of the free Senior High School program and recently, the Agenda 111 initiative to secure another term.
Some of the agenda 111 Hospitals are at various stages of completion whilst a lot others have also been completed across the country.
The Akufo-Addo-Bawumia led government is set to inaugurate Today, Thursday, December 5, 2024 three of those projects, leaving 108 that will be completed possibly next year.
Available information indicates that the Trede, Kokoben and Ahanta West Agenda 111 Hospitals in Ashanti and Western regions respectively will be inaugurated today.
The inauguration, which marks the beginning of the rollout of completed Agenda 111 facilities, would be done by the president in the Ashanti region, whilst that of Ahanta West will be done by his representative – the Western Regional Minister, Kwabena Okyere Darko-Mensah.
President Akufo-Addo has described the initiative as “the largest investment in healthcare infrastructure in Ghana’s history.”
He underscored its potential to not only bridge geographical disparities in healthcare access, but also to boost local economies through job creation during and after construction.
INITIATIVE
On his tour of the Greater Accra region, President Akufo-Addo said the Agenda 111 projects were at 70% completion. It is expected that over 40 facilities will be fully operational by the first quarter of 2025.
The project, announced by President Akufo-Addo in August 2020, was conceived as part of his government’s response to the gaps in healthcare delivery exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Under the initiative, 101 district hospitals, six regional hospitals in the newly created regions and two specialised mental health hospitals are being constructed. The Accra Psychiatric hospital is also being re-developed.
40-BED
Aside the Agenda 111 projects, government is also constructing several 40-bed hospitals across the country. Sometime last week, President Akufo-Addo inaugurated four of those hospitals constructed by Vameed Engineering in the Ashanti region.
He inaugurated one at Sabronum, then Twedie, Drobonso and Suame, all in the Ashanti region. Yesterday, he inaugurated three in the Eastern Region at Kwabeng, Jumapo and Okere as part of his visit to the region.
The seven he has inaugurated are part of the 200 being constructed, out of which 60 have reportedly been completed. According to the government, the remaining hospitals would be inaugurated on monthly basis.
FREE SHS
The NPP is also going into the Saturday polls based on the success story of the popular Free Senior High School policy.
The statistics have been shared with the public that the policy rolled out in 2017 has increased the number of students at the second cycle schools from 800,000 to 1.6 million.
Also, reports indicate that 5.7 million people have benefitted from the implementation of the free SHS, whichnow includes free TVET education.
DIGITAL
The presidential candidate of the ruling New Patriotic Party, Dr. Bawumia, who engaged in private meetings in Accra to mop up his campaign, seeks to leverage digitalisation to grow the Ghanaian economy.
Dr. Bawumia, in his interaction with stakeholders, said that the Akufo-Addo government had laid the foundation upon which his digitalisation agenda would take full flight.
This week, while his boss, the president, was commissioning interchanges and hospitals, he was also inaugurating the electronic passport and electronic gates at the Kotoka International Airport.
POLLS
Meanwhile, some election polls have projected wins for both candidates of the two leading political parties.
Whereas Global InfoAnalytics, managed by Mussa Dankwa, has predicted a win for John Dramani Mahama, Associate Professor of Statistics at the Kumasi Technical University, projected victory for Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia.
