Presidential staffer under the Mahama administration, Stan Xoese Dogbe
A Presidential staffer under the Mahama administration, Stan Xoese Dogbe, has urged members of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) to proudly proclaim that the Bank of Ghana Hospital at Cantonments, Accra, is a John Mahama project.
Some members of the NPP have challenged supporters of the NDC to prove the Bank Hospital, which was inaugurated and operationalized on Thursday, is a project of the Mahama administration. Some claim the government did not fund the project directly.
But reacting to the controversy, Dogbe, an aide to Mr Mahama, has told supporters of the NDC to be proud to say the Bank Hospital is a Mahama project.
Responding to a social media post asking why another post mentioned President John Dramani Mahama in relation to the Bank Hospital, Dogbe, a former broadcast journalist indicated “But this project has not been named after anyone or Mahama for that matter. It is called the Bank Hospital.”
He continued, “the political realism here is that the provision of key and needed infrastructure by a government must be recognized and counted as part of the developmental objective and achievements of the government. Even in the US, the Democrats will point out what the Republicans did not do. And their democracy is centuries old.”
He explained that the John Mahama government in following up on the Mills administration, had a vision to expand health infrastructure to ensure access to quality health care for the people.
The construction of the Bank hospital, in addition to many polyclinics, district hospitals (Weta, Dodowa, Kwabenya etc), health centres, CHPS compounds, the modernization and expansion of the Ridge hospital, the maritime hospital, UGMC, etc, were as a result of that vision,” Dogbe emphasised.
He quizzed, “Why must these not be counted as part of the developmental achievements of John Mahama?”
“The bank hospital was completed in 2016. All that has been added since then is an Annex, but like many other projects including the Fomena, Military hospital and others they [the NPP government] abandoned, this Bank Hospital was also left to rot, and only became useful to them during the COVID period as a VIP centre.”
To this end, he said “If they are commissioning the hospital into service after 5+ years, the National Democratic Congress is right in pointing out that this is a project executed by the Mahama government and not this administration.”
“We do have every reason to remind Ghanaians that the promise by Nana Addo to build 88 hospitals and which we said was a lie, is indeed a BIG FAT LIE. And when he demolished the upgraded La Polyclinic to build a new one, and we said it’s another lie, the place where the La Polyclinic stood is now a walled bare land,” stated Dogbe in the social media reaction.
He went on to point out that ” no one is saying that the hospital was built with John Mahama’s money, but it takes vision, it takes drive, or takes a Development-oriented president to ensure that the taxpayers money is used to improve the living conditions of the citizenry and on projects that will impact the people at all times.”
Encouraging NDC members to be proud of their achievements, Stan Dogbe stated, “the Bank hospital is a John Mahama project, and as adherents/ supporters of the NDC, we should be proud to say so, and loudly.”