We have secured €50m funding to rebuild La General Hospital - Health minister

He said the Ministry of Finance has secured a funding of fifty million Euros to reconstruct the hospital.

In a briefing to Parliament on Tuesday, Mr Agyemang-Manu said that the Finance Ministry had identified a local alternative source of funding for the project.

“At the 37th session of the cabinet, the president directed the Ministers of Trade and Industry, Health and Finance to find alternative sources of funding to recommence the project. Through the efforts of the three-man committee, the Minister of Finance has now identified funds locally to continue the project with the same simple work scope but a reviewed price of 50 million Euro,” he said.

The Health minister noted that processes were underway to ensure payment of the contractor and that work would commence in earnest soon.

The Majority Leader in Parliament, Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu had earlier said that the reconstruction of the hospital has stalled because of the lack of funds.

He said the sponsors for the reconstruction have withheld the funds meant for the hospital.

Making a statement on the floor of Parliament, Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu said that the sponsors withheld the funds after Ghana entered into an engagement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

“Mr. Speaker, what has happened is that after the engagement with the IMF, funding from those sources that Parliament approved of, the funding has been withheld by the sponsors,” Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu said.

“Mr. Speaker, until the nation is given a clean bill of health by the IMF, it is going to be difficult for the funding to be released. This is why the government now wants to situate it within the context of Agenda 111, and that will mean that the facility will have to be scaled down a bit.”

The hospital was demolished in 2020 due to structural defects, but work on the reconstruction project has yet to begin.