General News of Monday, 6 September 2021
Source: www.ghanaweb.live
2021-09-06Agenda 111: Oppong-Nkrumah tackles NDC MP over ‘illegal contracts’ allegation
Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, Minister of Information
• Government is unhappy by politically motivated efforts to discredit the Agenda 111 project
• Information Minister Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah says government however appreciates positive criticism
• He also responded to an NDC MP who recently alleged issues of 'illegal and inflated costs' in relation to the project
Information Minister
Read full articlehref='/GhanaHomePage/people/person.php?ID=2452'>Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah has responded to his fellow Member of Parliament from the opposition National Democratic Congress, over claims that government has inflated cost of illegally awarded contracts connected to the Agenda 111 project.
MP Nelson-Rockson Dafeamekpor of South Dayi in a September 4, 2021 tweet said the NDC were not against the project in and of itself before alleging that issues of illegal contracts and inflated cost of the projects needed to be of concern to all Ghanaians.
"The Moderator of the Presbyterian Church got it all horribly wrong. We are in full support of Agenda 111 but we won’t support unlawful awards of contracts that are palpably inflated. Isn’t the Moderator scandalized by news of Ghc36m paid as fees for the Hospital Design alone?" his tweet read.
Oppong-Nkrumah, who is MP for Ofoase-Ayirebi, responded to Dafeamekpor directly when he made submissions at a Ministerial Meet-the-Press event at the Information Ministry on Sunday, September 5.
He addressed the general issue of politically motivated attempts to taint the project before citing the specific case of Dafeamekpor.
“Government notes recent attempts by some persons to deliberately and without basis, whip up political anger against the country’s Agenda 111 project which is aimed at closing the gap in the availability of healthcare and infrastructure nationwide.
"Disappointingly we also notice deliberate politically motivated claims of impropriety being cooked up against the project. This includes a recent claim by the Member of South Dayi that the projects were illegally awarded and the contract prices inflated.
"The projects were legally granted in accordance with approvals from the Public Procurement Authority. We encourage a healthy public conversation on the project, but we strongly discourage any attempts to undermine it with the hope of making some partisan political gains”, Mr. Oppong Nkrumah stated.
