500-Bed Military Hospital Project Progresses

By Lawrence Markwei

Work on the 500-bed capacity hospital for the Ghana Armed Forces at Afari, near Kumasi in the Ashanti Region is steadily progressing with roofing, internal fittings to the building.

The construction of the state-of-the art ultra modern hospital which contract was signed in 2014 and was expected to be completed in September last year, had the completion date extended to September 2019 due to technical challenges encountered by the project executor, Euroget De-Invest, an Egyptian multi-national conglomerate.

Conducting, media persons round the facility on Saturday, in an effort to dispel rumours that works at site has been halted, Islam Sharawy, Resident Manager, said though genuine challenges were encountered which slowed the pace of work, substantial progress had been made.

He explained that, after the signing of the contract, government indecision of where to site the new military hospital was one of the factors which took up few months for the project to commence.

Mr Sharawy said even after the choice of Afari for the hospital to serve the middle and northern belt of Ghana, encroachment at the southern portion of the land allocated for the hospital project, became another challenge.

"All these issues led to the redesigning of the project which finally took off after months of delay, adding that, those challenges notwithstanding, the construction of the hospital took off with focus to meet a 42 months completion dead-line.

Mr Sharawy said just as the building of all facilities of the hospital was completed, import materials needed for internal and external fittings run into tax-exemption challenges.

He said members of Parliament finally resolved the tax issue in December 2016 and approval was given for the clearance of all imports of about 114 containers on tax-free basis with about 114 containers waiting at the Tema Harbour to be cleared.

Mr Sharawy said Euroget has started clearing the imports leading to resumption works at the various sites saying that "With this development, we can continue with works to meet the new deadline".

Mr Prince Armah, Coordinator of the Euroget nine hospital projects in the country, explaining circumstances leading to the termination of contract with one of the sub-contractors working on the access road to the hospital, said it was necessary to take that action after many notices of unnecessary delays went unheeded.

He said since the issue was now under adjudication at the court, there was no need to comment on its merit and demerit until the court made its pronouncement on the case.

Mr Baba Anaba, administrator of Euroget later when addressing workers on site, urged them not to relent in their efforts to get the hospital completed on time.

He said each of them should be proud in the future to be associated with the construction of the hospital when it was finally completed and serving the people in the immediate environs and beyond saying, "I believe you will derive immense satisfaction from serving human kind beyond ethnicity and political persuasion."

Mr Anaba also tasked the workforce to work hard in order for the project to be completed on time to serve the purpose for which it was being constructed in the zone.

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