Ghana’s vice president says that spending $25 million on an 80-bed hospital is unacceptable

Ghana’s vice president, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, says citizens must get absolute value for every fund spent by the government.

Bawumia made this known in Accra on Tuesday, June 25, 2018 when he attended the Value for Money Conference with Senior Minister, Finance Minister, Education Minister, Minister of State in charge of Procurement.

Speaking at the event, Bawumia said investigation has revealed that Ghana constructs 60-80 bed district hospitals for $25 million, while AfDBank constructs a 150 bed hospital for just $1.3 million.

He said: “It has emerged that Ghana constructs 60-80 bed district hospitals for $25 million, whereas the African Development Bank constructed a 150 bed hospital in Accra for some GHC5.76 million or $1.3 million without equipment.

ALSO READ: 3 things we learnt from Cassiel Ato Forson’s response to Dr Bawumia

“Even if we have to equip this hospital for some $1 million, the total cost cannot get to more than $3 million. So how come we are building district hospitals for $25 million, a figure which even excludes the tax exemptions granted on equipment imported for the hospitals? So for one hospital that Ghana is currently constructing, we could have built and equipped 6 hospitals!”

This is coming days after the VP blamed the past administration for the current state of the Ghanaian Cedi in the financial market.