Akufo-Addo Begs Mahama to Save Failed Agenda 111 Legacy

By Prince Ahenkorah

Ghana’s healthcare legacy of Nana Akufo-Addo is not quite what he promised. Speaking at the centenary of Kyebi Government Hospital over the weekend, the former president urged his successor, John Dramani Mahama, to complete the flagship Agenda 111 hospital programme a project Akufo-Addo himself launched but could not finish.
Of the 111 hospitals planned, only three had been completed by the time of the transition, according to a disclosure from the Mahama administration. Even those three are not yet fully operational.
“We must be honest; not every project was realised, not every facility was completed,” Akufo-Addo told the gathering in Akyem Abuakwa. “Agenda 111 must continue. Continuity, not disruption, is how health systems succeed.”
The subtext was unmistakable. After eight years in power, Akufo-Addo’s signature health infrastructure drive has delivered a fraction of its target. The cost to finish the remaining 108 hospitals is estimated at US$1.4 billion a heavy lift for a government already under fiscal pressure.
The setting of Akufo-Addo’s appeal was itself a study in Ghana’s uneven healthcare reality. The Kyebi Government Hospital, built a hundred years ago, lacks a scan machine and a proper laboratory, according to the Akyem Abuakwa traditional ruler, Osagyefuo Amoatia Ofori Panin.
“I am not the only one frustrated; nurses and doctors at the hospital are equally concerned,” the overlord said.
The hospital’s medical superintendent, Dr Isaac Adu-Opoku Antwi, added that children and pregnant women share wards a situation he described as detrimental to patient care. He called for a maternity block, a children’s block, a physiotherapy unit and accommodation for health workers.
Felix Kwakye Ofosu, spokesperson for President Mahama, confirmed the scale of the unfinished business. In an interview on 25 January, he said the transition team found that only three of the 111 Agenda 111 hospitals had been completed. Seventy facilities were not operational and could not admit patients.
The new government has not yet committed to finishing the programme. But Akufo-Addo’s public nudge delivered on traditional turf suggests that the former president is keen to see his legacy project rescued, even if he could not deliver it himself.
For now, the fate of Agenda 111 hangs between fiscal reality and political continuity. Ghana’s health system, as the Kyebi hospital’s condition shows, cannot afford another decade of unfinished promises.