The National Democratic Congress (NDC) Parliamentary Minority has called on the Government to, as a matter of urgency, put in the necessary processes to pay all outstanding electricity bills of public health facilities.
That, it said, was necessary to prevent power cuts to those institutions.
Mr Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, the Ranking Member on the Health Committee of Parliament, and NDC MP for Juaboso, said recent publications showed that some 91 hospitals owed the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) cumulatively more than GH¢261million.
The National Taskforce of the ECG had, therefore, served demand notices on those facilities threatening to curtail the power supply within 48 hours if payment was not made.
He reiterated that those notices were not only threats to the facilities or their management but to the public or patients who might suffer needlessly due to the disconnection from the national grid.
Mr Akandoh said while serving notice to the ECG that health service delivery was a social good, government must work assiduously to ensure those services were threatened.
Article 34(2) of the 1992 Constitution guarantees the right to good health and so health service delivery from the primary to quaternary levels, which were mainly public funded, must be supported.
He also touched on demands concerning internally generated funds that were “choking the facilities of their ability to settle their obligations to utilities and other service providers.”
Mr Akandoh said it was interesting to note that although the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital budgeted to spend some GH¢3 million on its electricity bills for 2023, by September of the same year, it had already spent GH¢23,859,412.32 on electricity bill or 795 per cent of the budgeted amount.
“The same phenomenon applies to the Tamale Teaching Hospital that budgeted to spend GH¢400,000 of its IGF on electricity but by September it had already spent GH¢734,193.36 or 183.55 per cent of the budgeted amount on electricity.”
He said the Government should find reliable funding mechanisms other than the IGF to cover those important expenditure line items.
The Government could consider the National Health Insurance Fund to take up some of the utility bills of health facilities to ensure their services were not curtailed, Mr Akandoh said.
GNA
ABD
15 March 2024
Caption:
Mr Kwabena Mintah Akandoh addressing the press
