Two-time flagbearer aspirant of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Kennedy Ohene Agyapong, is alleging the previous NPP administration distributed the Agenda 111 Hospital contracts among themselves and sold them for kickbacks.
Launched by President Akufo-Addo on August 17, 2021, the Agenda 111 project was said to be completed within 18 months of its launch –by February 2023. However, Akufo-Addo later admitted that the deadline was overly ambitious and revised the deadline to commissioning all 111 hospitals by the end of his tenure on January 7, 2025.
However, while leaving office on January 7, 2025, not a single one of the hospitals had been completed. According to Ken Agyapong, the project did not see the day of light because it was shared among party members who subsequently sold to other people for kickbacks.
The former Assin Central MP was reacting to criticisms from party members after Ken Agyapong accused the NPP of doing nothing to complete and operationalise the Afari Military Hospital in the Ashanti region after 8 years in government.
Responding to a confrontation between some MPs of the NPP and a soldier stationed at the facility to provide security when he denied the MPs entry to the project site, he said the NPP should have completed the project which was over 95% complete before the previous Mahama administration left office.
The NPP lawmakers who were denied entry at the facility accused the government of failing to complete the hospital after 15 months in office to reduce the burden on the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital which is the only referral facility serving the central and some northern belt of the country.
After a presentation to the Ghana Police Service on his birthday, Ken Agyapong told journalists he doesn’t understand why NPP MPs are accusing a 15-month old administration of not completing and operationalising the facility after failing to do so during their 8-year stay in office.
Speaking on Net 2 TV, the former Chairman of the Defence and Interior Committee of Parliament accused the NPP of failing to complete the Agenda 111 because of corruption.
“The NPP says I am bitter. I will not say anything to them. They think it is about what they did during the campaign. They can’t shut me down. If Ghanaians want to know, they should ask them about Agenda 111 if they were able to complete one. They sold the contracts to other people and take 10 per cent,” he alleged.
He said the sale of contracts and demanding kickbacks is not a practice peculiar to the NPP, alleging that similar incidents have occurred in the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC).
“In the NDC too, I was there when somebody brought a contract to my wife about 55 million dollars. She was asked to pay an advance of 7 per cent before they give it to her,” he alleged.
‘I’ll spill the beans if they provoke me’ – Ken Agyapong warns NPP
