The Minister of the Interior, Mohammed-Mubarak Muntaka, has given details on why the Police Hospital, whose construction started over 20 years ago, under the John Agyekum Kufuor administration, has not been completed.
Speaking in an interview on Pan-African TV with veteran journalist Kwesi Pratt Jnr, Muntaka indicated that the construction of the Police Hospital, which was supposed to be one of the country’s national emergency centres, like the 37 Military Hospital, has been marred by corruption.
He indicated that when he assumed office as minister, he tried to retrieve documents pertaining to the hospital project after some parties involved in the construction sought to meet him, but he could not find any documents.
“Sometimes I wonder how we’ve been running our country. I’m looking for the document, the contract, the ministry cannot find a copy, the police cannot find a copy, the Minister of Finance cannot find a copy, the Attorney General cannot find a copy. I said, ‘Go to the archive’. They went to the archive. The file on International Hospital was empty,” he narrated.
He added, “Yet the group, a British company, they were insisting on coming to meet me. I said, ‘No, I can’t meet these guys when I don’t have any information. I don’t have any facts about this. I don’t have any briefing. How do I meet them?’”
The minister stated that he subsequently found a letter from the Ministry of Finance about a company called Crown Agents, which mentioned the Cabinet.
He said that he wrote to the Cabinet for details on the contract for the construction of the hospital, and that was where he found out that the government, in 2015, had ordered an audit into the project.
He said that two audits revealed that over £40 million had been spent on the construction project, which originally had a total cost of £15 million.
“When the Cabinet response came, then I realised that in 2015, the Cabinet approved a forensic audit to be done on the International Hospital, that’s the Police Hospital, which was done. We didn’t find the report. But once PwC was mentioned, I wrote to them that I needed an official copy, and they brought it separately. When they brought it, Crown Agents was mentioned, so I also wrote to Crown Agents. I needed a copy of what they had done, only to realise that in 2015, PwC had done this forensic audit that showed that International Hospital had been overpaid by about £40 million, and therefore, the government should take steps to retrieve this money and terminate the contract.
“I kept pushing, only to realise that in 2023, the same Cabinet again authorised another forensic audit, which was done this time by Crown Agents, and they came to the same conclusion that there was an overpayment of well over £40 million,” he added.
Muntaka said that he, together with the Attorney General, has now terminated the contract and is working on re-awarding it so the project can be completed as soon as possible.
He added that the necessary steps have been initiated to retrieve the payments cited in the audit reports.
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Missing Contract, Over £40m Overpayment and More: Muntaka blows alarm on Police Hospital ‘rot’
