'The progress is not satisfactory' - Bawumia laments pace of Agenda 111 project at Paga

Vice President, Alhaji Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has expressed concern about the slow pace of work on government’s ‘Agenda 111’ project at Zenga, a community in the Kassena-Nankana West District of the Upper East Region.

“I am very concerned that this project is not moving at the pace it should be moving, and we have to say that, as it is. I wish I could say that I was happy with the progress.

“The progress is not satisfactory, and I have said that to the Consultant who has briefed me, and he said the same, that it is not satisfactory.

“We need to be making more progress than this, so we are going to encourage the Contractor to really get on, and get this thing back on schedule because we are behind schedule,” Dr Bawumia said when he visited the project site.

He said the idea of the ‘Agenda 111’ was to take a holistic approach to address the lack of health facilities across over 90 Districts in the country without hospitals.

Dr Bawumia said President Akufo-Addo took the decision to address the issue of lack of hospitals in some Districts, “We are doing this to address a problem we have had since independence. So we are taking the opportunity to close this gap.”

A sod was cut for the project, which is still at foundation level on February 17, 2022, and since then, the pace of work had been very slow despite calls by Mr Stephen Yakubu, the Regional Minister and some stakeholders in the Region about the pace of work.

Prior to the inspection of the project, Dr Bawumia and his entourage called on the Paramount Chief of the Paga Traditional Area, Pe Charles Awia Awampaga II at his Palace, where the Paga Pio through his spokesperson, thanked government for some development projects in his Traditional Area.

“The inland port at Paga is a great initiative, and we want to appreciate the government for that. We also have schools built by the government, our communities have benefitted from potable drinking water we are highly impressed,” the Paga Pio said.

The Paramount Chief appealed to the Vice President to reconstruct the girls’ dormitory block of the Paga Senior High School which was gutted by fire about a year ago, to solve the accommodation challenge of the school.

He said some men were taking advantage of the girls who were compelled to rent rooms in the town, “Paga is a border town, and the girls are facing a lot of challenges, we are recording high numbers of teenage pregnancy cases”.

Pe Awampaga II appealed to government to construct a broken steel bridge between the Navio and Tazika communities which linked other communities within and outside the District.

The already deplorable steel bridge collapsed together with a heavy-duty truck loaded with logs on March 23, 2022 when the truck attempted passing on it, and had since not been repaired.

The Paramount Chief said the collapsed bridge slowed economic activities in the area, especially farmers who had to transport their produce to Paga market.

The Vice President was accompanied by Mr Dominic Nitiwul, the Minister of Defence, Mr Ambrose Dery, the Minister for the Interior, Mr Mustapha Ussif, Minister for Youth and Sports and Mr Abdulai Abanga, Deputy Minister for Works and Housing.

The rest were Mr Stephen Yakubu, the Upper East Regional Minister, Mr Yidana Zakaria, the North-East Regional Minister, Dr Anthony Nsiah-Asare, the Presidential Special Advisor on Health, Municipal and District Chief Executives across the Upper East and North-East Regions among other government and former government officials and executives of the New Patriotic Party.