The Director General of the Ghana Health Service, Dr. Ebenezer Appiah-Denkyira, has expressed shock at what he describes as failure on the part of the Upper East Regional Director of Health, Dr. Kofi Issah, to disclose to BONABOTO the whereabouts of the official vehicles he declared missing in August, 2016.
“It was the BONABOTO people who called and I said they should talk to him because he (Dr. Issah) is in the region. Sometimes I see the BONABOTO calling back and when I [ask] – ‘This man when he came back [from Accra] what did he tell you?’ They said he’s not talking to anybody.
“Instead of explaining to the same people [on] the vehicles in Upper East, what he has found out, he rather [did not talk] to them and allowed them to go about doing their thing,” the Director General told Starr News in a recorded telephone interview after BONABOTO had given him a 2-week ultimatum about 4 months ago to retrieve the “missing cars”.
Dr. Issah had announced in public that some five cars could not be accounted for as of the time an inventory of vehicles at the regional health directorate was being taken after he took over from his predecessor, Dr. John Koku Awoonor-Williams.
“As we took stock of 2015, somewhere along the line we realised that five vehicles were on our inventory but the transport manager could not account for them physically. The vehicles were not around where we normally park them. We followed administrative procedure by writing to the Director General that this is the situation.
“We wrote to him and we’ve written to the Regional Minister to advise us. They are not bicycles; they are not motorbikes. These are vehicles- one car, one Mitsubishi Pajero, one V8 and two pickups,” Dr. Issah had told stakeholders in Bolgatanga, the Upper East regional capital.
The Director General, too, had riposted, saying: “Media reports on your address at the region’s [just-ended] 2016 [half-year] review also harps on allegations that you made about missing vehicles in your region. This has been after you had received my [above-mentioned] letter that had indicated the whereabouts of the vehicles in response to your letter on the issue to me. The vehicles as indicated in my letter to you are not missing as you alleged and they are still in the Ghana Health Service.”
Subsequently, Dr. Appiah-Denkyira wrote to the former Upper East Regional Minister, Albert Abongo, and copied to the Minister of Health and the Chairman of the Ghana Health Service Council, pointing out that Dr. Issah only wanted to tarnish the legacy of his predecessor.
“The GEHIP Project chose to retain some of their vehicles in UER and relocate three (3) vehicles from the UER for continuation of the project in two regions long before Dr. Issah assumed duty as Regional Director of Health Services for UER. Without taking his time to find out details about such issues, Dr. Kofi Issah decided to embark on a programme to tarnish the name of his predecessor and also bring the image of GHS in general into disrepute.
“Instead of working to consolidate and build on the gains and achievements chalked in the region under his predecessor, Dr. Kofi Issah appears to embark on a programme to drag the name of the Ghana Health Service in the mud. In this quest, which I do not really understand, he appears bent on dragging all powers that be in the fray,” the Director-General said.
An official apology letter said to have been written by Dr. Issah to the Director General over his “missing cars” claims was sighted by Starr News and has been made public.
Car spotted at Health Director’s house not among “missing cars”
Some sources at the regional directorate hinted Starr News in 2016 about an official project vehicle Dr. Issah was said to have “unduly” given to his wife [name withheld].
The said car, a Toyota Hilux pickup with registration number GN 34399 12, was continuously spotted at Dr. Issah’s official residence from the day Starr News began an investigation into the allegation in October, 2016, to Monday December 19, 2016, which was the date Starr News managed to take the closest photographs and video footages of the vehicle in addition to the images of the same car already in stock.
The pickup belongs to a set of vehicles procured for the Ghana Essential Health Intervention Project (GEHIP), an initiative launched in 2009 to help reduce maternal and infant deaths in the region. The vehicle found at Dr. Issah’s residence was not among those he had declared missing in August, 2016. The particulars of the cars he said were missing had been captured in the published January investigative report. But some GEHIP vehicles, per the GEHIP documents in Starr News’s possession, were among the five vehicles he claimed were nowhere to be found.
Car meant for Dr. Issah’s official use, not for wife- BONABOTO
Meanwhile, BONABOTO, an association of natives from the Gurune-speaking zone of the Upper East region, has challenged the allegations levelled by the senior staff at the directorate, saying the “GEHIP pickup” Starr News spotted at Dr. Issah’s residence was not for his wife (name withheld) but for his (Dr.Issah’s) official use.
Spokesperson for the group, Stanley Abopaam, said this last month in a telephone rebuttal on A1 Radio, a private radio station transmitting from Bolgatanga, the Upper East regional capital.
Starr News’s Upper East Regional Correspondent, who was booked by the Bolga-based radio station for a live interview on his investigation and only agreed to speak once there was a ‘mouthpiece’ for Dr. Issah on the matter for the sake of balance, also took interest in that telephone interview for the purpose of publishing the couple’s defence later (if there was any) as enjoined by the journalistic principles of balance, fairness and presumption of innocence.
The regional correspondent in that encounter with the ‘mouthpiece’, Mr. Abopaam, did not state that Starr News found the wife to the regional health boss driving or using the GEHIP car as alleged by the sources but he probed for answers from the ‘mouthpiece’ as to what the project car was “doing” at the health director’s house for that months-long period whilst it was supposed to be at the directorate as arranged by the donor agencies, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF) and the Columbia University, to help “sustain the gains made” under the GEHIP initiative.
“That is the car (the pickup) Dr. Issah is using as his official vehicle now. That is the particular pickup Dr. Issah is using as his official vehicle ever since he assumed the office. And this is not the first time that car is parked at his house. And I have told you that just as Awoonor is Eddie’s friend, Awoonor was my friend. And at his time, that same pickup used to be parked at his house including the other vehicles,” Mr. Abopaam replied on A1’s morning show programme, Daybreak Upper East, with Christopher Asima as host of the show.
