Bekwai (Ash), Jan 6, GNA - Government has secured a 20 million-dollar loan for the construction of the Asante-Bekwai Government Hospital.

Work will therefore, commence very soon on the project, which was abandoned in 1975, Mr Kofi Opoku-Adusei, Deputy Minister of Women and Children's Affairs, disclosed this on Sunday.

Speaking during an interaction with the people of Bekwai, he explained that a 32 million-dollar loan facility was originally sought for the Bekwai and Tarkwa hospitals.

He said the government succeeded in getting 18 million dollars for the Bekwai hospital project from the African Development Bank and an additional two million dollars from the NORDIC Fund for the construction of a blood bank and a human resource centre for the hospital. Mr Opoku-Adusei, who is also the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bekwai, said the loan had received parliamentary approval and gone through the Ministry of Finance and had reached the implementation stage.

He said the Ministry of Health has also set up a technical implementation committee to oversee the commencement of work on the project soon.

Touching on the rehabilitation of roads in the Bekwai township, the Deputy Minister said in all, 15 kilometres of roads are to be resurfaced and that they had been divided into lots with the first lot of about three and a half kilometres being rehabilitated at the cost of 3.6 billion cedis.

Mr Opoku-Adusei said work on the first lot will soon be completed and will be followed immediately with the rehabilitation of the second stretch of roads until all the roads had been rehabilitated. Mr Richard Aboagye, the Amansie East District Chief Executive, asked the people to register in their numbers when the voter's registration exercise re-opens to enable them to vote.

He announced that the assembly has earmarked an industrial centre outside the centre of the town for artisans to ease the congestion in the town.