KATH employee drags CEO to CHRAJ over luxurious cars
An accountant at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) has petitioned the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) to investigate the CEO for misappropriation of COVID-19 donations.
Mr Awuni Akyireba, alleged in his petition dated November 10, that the management of the hospital splashed huge sums of donations on cars for the CEO, Dr Oheneba Owusu Danso, and the Medical Director, Professor Baafuor Kofi Opoku.
This was at the expense of basic needs to run the hospital and provide medical care for the public.
According to him, the management posted a loss at the end of 2020 but have been able “to buy two luxurious Toyota Camry cars at a cost of $58,000 each, the two of which cost $116,000”, despite an official Nissan SUV 2016 registered car handed to the CEO after his appointment in 2017.
He believes that “they used the COVID-19 funds [of the hospital] to buy the two cars, the purchase of which is far removed from the intended purpose of the donated monies”.
The petitioner argued that “the Medical Director, Prof. Baafuor Kofi Opoku, gave his official car, one of the two luxurious cars, to his wife to use and was involved in an accident with it on the 23rd of August, 2021”.
He claimed that “the wife of the Medical Director is not an employee of KATH and hence using our official car and getting accident with it constitute an abuse of public office by the medical director”.
He explained that KATH faced a lot of challenges such as inadequate beds that have resulted in deaths of patients, lack of laboratory reagents to run basic tests, damaged elevators, leaking roofs, broken windows that allow mosquitoes to infest patients with additional sickness at the ward.
But management failed to address the problems for smooth operations.
According to the petitioner, the CEO stated at a performance review meeting and business meeting of the hospital that all the directorates of the hospital incurred losses in the year under review to the tune of GHS 6.2million, hence the hospital was unable to pay end of year 2020 bonuses to staff and meet the logistical needs of the hospital.
Additionally, he pointed out that the acting Head of Directorate of Trauma and Orthopaedics had to write on 29 October 2021 to suspend all orthopaedic surgeries at the A&E theatre due to the unavailability of theatre tables.
Based on the concerns raised in the petition, he wants CHRAJ to take action to sanitise the system to ensure efficient operations at the referral hospital which serves a large part of the country’s middle belt.