A visit to the proposed site for the construction of the Upper West Regional Hospital, in Wa, by Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia and a team of media men indicates that nearly two years after the sod was cut for construction of the Hospital to begin, not even a single block has been laid on the site.

Despite assurances by President Mahama almost three months ago that funding had been fully secured for construction of the hospital to begin, and the project completed within a few months, the site for the proposed hospital has been completely taken over by weeds.

Dr. Bawumia, speaking to the few media men who accompanied him to the site indicated his disappointment with the ‘no show’ on the site and the government’s continuous deception of the Ghanaian people.

He said, “I am quite disappointed and surprised because there was a mass sod cutting ceremony which heralded the supposed beginning of the construction of this hospital and just a few days ago, the President, in his IEA address, said that the government was going to complete the hospital so I assumed that some progress had been made and I decided to come and see the state of progress of the Wa Regional Hospital. But as you can see today, there is nothing. It’s really an empty space and it’s another example of propaganda. You say you are building a hospital and then we come and find no hospital is being built, they say they have replaced 1,700 schools, we haven’t seen where these 1,700 schools are. They say they are going to build 30,000 houses for security personnel and it was no show".

“So how are we going to take serious their promise to build 200 or so new Secondary schools, how are we going to take serious their promise to put up housing units for lecturers and teachers? I am just seeing this as another piece of evidence that this government is not really taking people seriously and is more focused on propaganda than actual work,” he said.

It would be recalled that in August 2010, then vice-President, John Dramani Mahama led a high powered government delegation to Wa to cut the sod for construction to begin on the Upper West Regional Hospital. The supposed construction of the hospital was trumpeted far and wide as one of the major achievements of the NDC administration with the then Regional Minister, Issahaku Salia even thanking the government profusely on behalf of the people of the Region for the facility at the sod-cutting ceremony.

Following this, government and various officials created several impressions about the ongoing construction of the hospital with a publication by the State owned Daily Graphic in its Wednesday 17th August, 2011 edition and attributed to Deputy Minister of the Region, Mr. Caesar Kale who said: “A regional hospital has been constructed in Wa. Five polyclinics have also been constructed in some parts of the region while a number of CHIP compounds and other health institutions are being established”

The President, John Mahama, who cut the sod as Vice-President, upon assuming the reigns of governance also promised the chiefs and people of the Upper West Region in August that the funding for the hospital had been fully secured and assured the chiefs of the Region during a courtesy call on him in early August that disbursement of funds were going to be done in two weeks for construction to start.

At his recent IEA encounter, the President also gave the indication that construction had begun with construction to be completed soon.