A former Deputy Minister of Information under the Mahama administration, Felix Kwakye Ofosu, has responded to the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church Rt. Rev. Prof. Joseph Obiri Yeboah Mante, for saying that persons who are against the construction of the agenda 111 hospitals are witches.

Rt. Rev. Prof. Obiri Yeboah Mante urged Pastors who want to exorcise witchcraft to tackle persons who are against the agenda 111 project because their attitude smacks of witchcraft.

“We’ve allowed politics to dominate our lives to an extent that we do not have good hospitals… If someone says he is coming to construct 111 hospitals and you are angry about it, you are a witch. For the pastors who want to exorcise witchcraft, deal with those critics,” he told the gathering.

But in a Facebook post reacting to this development, Mr Kwakye Ofosu said “Apparently, you can unwittingly earn the tag of a witch or wizard for being a critic of the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government.”

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on Tuesday August 17 commissioned the Agenda 111 project which will ensure the construction of 111 hospitals across the country.

During the commission of the project in Trede in the Ashanti Region the President said among other things that the project will be providing 20,000 jobs for health professionals when completed.

He said the Ministry of Health is going to recruit more doctors, nurses and pharmacists when the project is done.

He also said that more indirect jobs are also going to be created by the project implementation.

The president further indicated that the Covid-19 pandemic has exposed years of under investment in Ghana’s health sector.

To that end, he said his administration is improving on the investment in the health sector of the economy.

He said “I am glad that the biggest ever investment  in the nation’s healthcare  is being made .We have met this morning  because of the ravages of Covid 19  which has affected every country  on the planet . For us in Ghana not only has the pandemic disrupted our daily lives, but it has also  exposed the deficiencies  with our healthcare system  because of the  years of under  investment and neglect

Health Minister Kwaku Agyeman-Manu said during the event that the surest way for the government to improve on the healthcare delivery is to provide infrastructure.

To that end, he said the government is committed to providing the needed health infrastructure.

He said “As you know, a healthy people guarantee a healthy  nation  and government  being mindful of this fact has proved to show to the people  its commitment  to improve the health status of all residents in the country.

“The surest way to improve healthcare  sis through providing new  infrastructure  or improving just  existing ones across the length and breadth of the country.”

Former Minister of Health under the Mahama administration, Mr Alex Segbefia, said after the commissioning of the project that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo packaged the National Democratic Congress (NDC) ideas to build hospitals in each district and named it the Agenda 111.

He said the NDC, during the campaign season brought the idea of establishing hospitals in the districts across the country.

Mr Segbefia said “Firstly, it is not new. When we talk about three regional hospitals in the Psychiatric area, when I was in government we were talking of Psychiatric hospital in  Kumasi, Psychiatric hospital in Tamale, we were also talking of even expanding Pantang by giving the land to a private developer in Accra. And then, these developers had come up with another plan that we should use the land as collateral basically, and they will pay for the expansion of Pantang.”

“So, all these issues, one regional hospital, go and look at our campaign [message] it is there. One hospital in every district is something that has been there from time immemorial and so all you have now is packaged it.  The reason why you couldn’t go about doing the things we are talking about even though you said this is your intension, it was because you needed to be sure that when you are planning you know where the money is coming from.

“We all know we wanted a hospital in every district , we have been building hospitals in districts  for a long period  from the time of Rawlings  in Bono Ahafo we got some district hospitals  right to the time of Mills  and to the time of Mahama.

“So this idea of every district should have a hospital is not new. So you have now decided to package it differently and call it Agenda 111,” he reporters on Wednesday August 18.