The government has inspected progress of work on the 300 ambulances it has ordered from Turkey to be distributed to all constituencies in the country.
The Minister for Special Development Initiative, Mavis Hawa Koomson who was in Turkey to inspect the work being done on the ambulances said they will arrive in the country before the end of the year.
The Minister said she was impressed with the work being done as it is near completion.
According to her, the ambulances will boost the operations of the National Ambulance Service which currently has less than 60 ambulances, and help improve emergency health care in Ghana.
The ambulances were expected to arrive in the country by June 2019 but the minister at a press briefing said that was not possible due to procurement issues.
“You cannot just get up and start using government money just like that. You have to go through procurement processes and it is very very difficult… You can use five months for just one project procurement so if we have 12 months in a year and we use five months for one project, how many projects can you do?,” she said.
Hawa Koomson said there were arrangements with the manufacturers to also set up a maintenance and spare parts unit in Ghana to deal with mechanical faults once they occur.
The delegation comprises deputy Health Minister, Tina Mensah, Deputy Minister for Information, Nana Ama Dokua Asiamah Adjei and Chairman of the Health Committee in Parliament Dr. Kwabena Twum Nuamah.
President Akufo-Addo during his campaign in the 2016 elections promised that his government will roll out a programme that would assign every constituency $1 million to facilitate the rapid development of constituencies.
In fulfillment of this promise, a programme called Infrastructure for Poverty Eradication Programme (IPEP) aimed at radically improving the state of basic infrastructure as the constituency level was initiated.
IPEP will serve as the vehicle through which the $1 million expenditure will be met.
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