Deputy Health Minister Kingsley Aboagye-Gyedu has dared former Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana to take him to court, if he feels maligned by the exposé on his involvement in the University of Ghana Medical Centre.
The deputy minister who was speaking to host of Sunrise morning show Winston Amoah Wednesday said claims he made against the former Chancellor and eight others are based on facts available to him.
“If he wants to take me to court he is free to go, I am doing my job so he can call me all the names he so desires. I do not think he has a case, because I am speaking to documents I have before me,” he insisted.
The Deputy Health Minister has accused Professor Ernest Aryeetey, former Deputy Health Minister Rojo Mettle Nunoo and a former Provost of the University of Ghana, Professor Aaron Nii Lante Lawson, some others of registering the newly built 650-bed University of Ghana Medical Centre in their names.
He raised issues with the registration of the medical centre as a limited liability company with Professor Aryeetey and 8 others as directors according to information he gathered from the Registrar General’s Department.
According to Kingsley Aboagye-Gyedu, his ministry is mandated to ensure that Ghanaians are not shortchanged in any way, hence, his commitment to ensuring due diligence is done with issues regarding the medical centre.
“Given the amount of money involved, we should have gotten cabinet approval to make sure Ghanaians are not shortchanged,” he stressed.
He added, the ministry of health has no right to dole out a government project to a state agency without recourse to cabinet or the Ministry of Finance.
Reacting to the minister’s claims, Professor Aryeetey said he had resigned from the University since last year and no longer has any involvement with management of the medical centre.
“I resigned on 24th November 2017, and it is not my responsibility to alert the Registrar General of my resignation. It is the responsibility of the university to go there and remove my name from their records.”
Professor Aryeetey noted that allegations leveled against him are an attempt to mar his reputation and achievements over the years.
“There is nothing we did that was illegal; we built a modern hospital for our university. There is a lot of effort into rewriting my legacy both from within the University and outside,” he said.
He challenged the deputy health minister to educate himself to be abreast with issues regarding the centre among other matters related to his ministry.
“The problem the deputy minister has is that he does not spend enough time to read documents, and he doesn’t take time to understand issues himself and he goes explaining something he doesn’t understand to the public.”
According to professor Aryeetey, the University of Ghana Medical Centre was built with a good intent to serve the needs of Ghana’s premier university.
By Irene Amesimeku| 3news.com| Ghana