Accra, Ghana//-The World Bank’s Vice President for Western and Central Africa, Ousmane Diagana has visited the Korle Bu Treatment Centre and the Accra Digital Centre as part of his three-day official visit to Ghana.
The Korle Bu Treatment Centre of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital which is being financed by the World Bank at the cost of 30 million Ghana cedis is nearing completion.
The 30-bed facility when completed would treat diseases such as COVID-19 and other infectious diseases in the country.
Mr Diagana and his team which included the World Bank Country Director for Ghana, Pierre Laporte; and the World Bank’s Chief Economist for Africa, Dr. Albert G. Zeufack were conducted around the facility by the Minister for Health, Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, Chief Executive Officer of Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, Dr Opoku-Ware Ampomah, and the project managers.
Speaking at the project site, Mr Agyeman-Manu thanked the World Bank for committing its resources into the project and assured Mr Diagana and the Bank that the project would meet its completion deadline.
He also used the opportunity to commend the Bank for its timely COVID-19 response to the Government of Ghana which enabled the country to contain the spread of the deadly virus.
“Without the support of the World Bank, Ghana won’t have been successful in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic”, Mr Agyeman-Manu stated.
The World Bank Mr Diagana had committed a total of $435.8million to support Ghana government’s COVID-19 health response along five strategic pillars to help contain the pandemic in the country.
The Bank’s support to the government went into five strategic pillars. These pillars are- stop importation of COVID-19 cases; contain the spread of the virus; provide adequate care for the sick; limit the impact of the virus on social and economic life; and inspire the expansion of domestic capability and deepen self-reliance.
Touching on the project, Mr Diagana was impressed at the level of work done so far and urged the contractor to speed up the work.
Mr Diagana and his team also toured a COVID-19 vaccination centre inside the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital where staff of the hospital and non-staff were given the COVID jabs.
It was disclosed at the centre that a total of 34,461 people had been vaccinated. Out of this number, 6,842 of them were the staff of the hospital, while the remaining number was non-staff.
At the Accra Digital Centre, the World Bank’s entourage was met by the management of the Centre which is the government mini technology park under the Ministry of Communications with the mandate to drive Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the country.
The Centre was partly funded by the World Bank. Also the Innovation Centre at the Accra Digital Centre, comprising an Innovation Hub (Ghana Innovation Hub) and a mobile Applications Lab (Ghana Tech Lab) under the Innovation module of the eTransform Ghana Project was funded by a World Bank grant.
The tour began at the Mobile Applications Lab of the Centre (Ghana Tech Lab) which is managed by an Innohub-Kumasi Hive joint venture, where Mr Diagana and his team visited the Creative Space, Training room, Maker Space, Co-working space and interacted with incubatees and trainees who shared their training experiences with Mr Diagana.
They continued the tour in the Innovation Hub of the Centre (Ghana Innovation Hub), managed by an MDF West Africa, Bluespace and Ghana Technology University Consortium, where they interacted with more incubatees and Tech startups.
The team also visited the Business Process Outsourcing Cluster, where they interacted with Management and agents of Ayo intermediaries and lastly to the technology SME Cluster where they interacted with firms like Kudigo which is into Fintech solutions.
Mr Diagana and his team were impressed by the activities of the Centre. The Accra Digital Centre according to officials has now been oversubscribed with some 40 technology companies on-board, creating more than 2000 digital and ancillary jobs.
Mr Diagana and team pledged more assistance for the Centre in the future and encouraged managers and incubatees and trainees to keep it up.
African Eye Report
