Opinions of Wednesday, 7 August 2024

Columnist: Olinaa Ababaasa

NPP's one-day-one scandal abstract policy and the corrupt 307 ambulance deal brouhaha

NPP flag NPP flag

The Ghana National Ambulance Service started Emergency Medical Services in 2006 with only 9 ambulances in 7 ambulance stations.

By 2014, the Mills/Mahama government had added 190 ambulances, making a total of 199 ambulances, and increased the number of ambulance stations to 128 across the country.

The visionary John Dramani Mahama further started processes in 2014 to get more ambulances as the demand for their services kept increasing.

Unfortunately, that didn’t happen before he lost power.

Between 2014 and 2019, the country lost 149 ambulances to accidents and other maintenance issues, making an average loss of 21 ambulances per year, which reduced the number to 50 by 2019.

Nana Addo/Bawumia government, upon realizing this, saw this as a “bush cut.”

In 2020, the Nana/Bawumia government procured 307 ambulances to be added to the 50 existing ambulances. A move that rather created a looting vessel for the Akuffo Addo/Bawumia family and friends government.

In the 2022 Auditor General's report, it was revealed that the cost of a fully functional ambulance is $80,000, yet Nana/Bawumia paid for the 307 ambulances for $54.3 million.

This suggests that instead of buying each ambulance for $80,000, they paid $176,873 per ambulance, pocketing $96,872 on each ambulance.

This means that Nana/Bawumia pocketed a total of $29,739,704 through the procurement of the 307 ambulance in 2020, yet they demanded our applause.

For an exchange rate of $1 to GHc16.00, Nana and Bawumia went home with GHc475,835,264.

Note that GHc1,000,000 = 10,000,000,000, or 10 billion old cedis.

Therefore, Bawumia and Nana bagged GHc47,583,526,400,000, which is 47 trillion, 583 billion, 526 million, and 400 thousand old cedis.

Naked thievery, isn’t it?

The Nation Builder, H.E. John Dramani Mahama, and the late John Evans Atta Mills built Upper West Regional Hospital for $54 million, the same amount Nana/Bawumia’s administration bought ambulances for the whole country, yet they created the impression that they have invested better in the health sector than any other government, not even Nkrumah.

In fact, the Wa West District is my home district. I can confirm without doubt that, from 2017 until date, all the projects undertaken in the Wa West District by the current administration cannot amount to $29.7 million, which Nana Bawumia pocketed in this 307 ambulance deal.

How can we develop under such a regime? Change is imminent!

More would be dropped on the ambulance spare parts deal. It will blow your mind.