MP DID NOT INITIATE PROJECT ...(Page 16)

Story: George Ernest Asare, Kumasi

THE Chairman for the Foundation for the Development of Rural Communities (FODERCOM), a non-governmental organisation (NGO), Mr John Ofori, has dismissed the claim by the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bosome-Freho, Nana Yaw Ofori-Kuragu, to the effect that he (the MP) had constructed a hospital estimated at GH¢500, 000 at Dajanso in the Bosome-Freho Constituency to enhance the primary health care in rural communities.
Reacting to a story which appeared in the Daily Graphic on Wednesday, January 23, 2008, with a headline — Ofori-Kuragu launches campaign — which the MP, among other things, mentioned that during his tenure of office, he constructed “a number of development projects throughout the constituency, including a hospital at Dajanso constructed at the cost of GH¢500,000”, Mr Ofori said the MP was throwing dust into the eyes of the public, because the hospital he claimed to have constructed was rather the initiative of FODERCOM.
Mr Ofori, who was at the Kumasi Offices of the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL) to react to the story, said the time had come for politicians to be guided by the truth and a sense of honesty in the discharge of their duty to win public confidence rather than resorting to deceit in their quest to entrench their positions, because the electorate were wide awake and would not allow anyone to take them for a ride .
“It was the NGO which constructed the yet-to-be opened hospital at a cost of $356,000 and, therefore, I was surprised to read in the Daily Graphic that the project was the initiative of the MP, who is now launching his political campaign in the hope of getting re-elected,” he stressed, adding that, “I would have kept quiet on the issue, but doing that would also undermine the work of the NGO, because our financiers abroad would not offer any future financial support if they get to know that the MP, who had never spent a pesewa on the project, was using the same project to enhance his political career.”
He mentioned one Richard Fowler of the United States of America as the sole financier of the hospital, and said apart from the hospital, Mr Fowler had earlier in 2005 supported the NGO to “construct a mechanised potable water system for two communities — Dajanso and Kusiase — at the cost of GH40, 000”.