The Chief Executive Officer of the Coastal Development Authority (CODA), lawyer Jerry Ahmed Shaib says all contractors engaged in the distribution of the one constituency one ambulance initiative have been paid.
Appearing on Frontline on Rainbow Radio 87.5Fm, he indicated that no contractor os owed for the contract they had with the government.
He was responding to a question on whether the contractors have been paid and in his response, he said yes.
The question came from a listener who said he had information that the contractors had not been paid.
But the CODA CEO disputed that assertion and insisted the contractors have all been paid.
”The contractors for the ambulances have been paid. Unless the one who asked the question is looking for ambulances we are not aware of. But all of them have been taken care of. They went through proper processes to be paid. I am optimistic they have all been paid. But if he wants more information, he could speak to the former boss Mavis Hawa Koomson.”
Background
The President of the Republic, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, on Tuesday, 28th January 2019, commissioned and presented three hundred and seven (307) new, state-of-the-art ambulances to the National Ambulance Service, in fulfilment of his 2016 campaign pledge.
According to President Akufo-Addo, the 307 ambulances are “fitted with advanced life support equipment and tracking devices, to be distributed to 275 constituencies, i.e. 1-Constituency-1-Ambulance, to be managed by the National Ambulance Service, and the remainder of thirty-two (32) ambulances to the headquarters of the Service.”
Presenting the ambulances, at a ceremony at the Independence Square, the President noted that, when he took office in January 2017, the National Ambulance Service had 130 stations, 10 regional control rooms across the country, and only 55 ‘semi-functioning ambulances.
“In December 2015, two hundred (200) ambulances were supposedly purchased by the Mahama government, out of which only thirty (30) arrived in the country. As though this was not enough, the thirty (30) were declared “not fit for purpose because they had cardinal defects and did not come with any medical equipment. This was completely unacceptable, and my government was determined to rectify this unhappy state of affairs,” he said.
President Akufo-Addo continued, “It is appropriate that the National Ambulance Service, established, in 2004, under the New Patriotic Party-led government of that outstanding Ghanaian statesman, the 2nd President of the 4th Republic, His Excellency John Agyekum Kufuor, is re-equipped, re-tooled and revamped under another NPP-led government, this time of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo”.
The presentation of the 307 ambulances, the President said, means that “as against the scenario whereby one (1) ambulance served approximately five hundred and twenty-four thousand (524,000) people at the end of December 2016, today, we have a much-improved ratio of one ambulance serving approximately eighty-four thousand (84,000) people.”
Additionally, the President revealed that 145 new ambulance stations will be created, bringing the total to 275 stations, ensuring that the country has a 1-Constituency-1-Ambulance Station situation.
“We promised in the 2016 NPP Manifesto to strengthen the National Ambulance Service, and we are doing just that,” he added.
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana
