Managing Trustee of the Ghana COVID-19 Private Sector Fund, Senyo Hosi, has intimated that the country’s private and public sectors should not see each other as competitors.
According to him, both sectors when engaged in a healthy collaboration will bring massive development than either could achieve independently.
“Some lousy thinking goes on in our policy making in our country, where people tend to identify and think that the private sector is in competition with the public sector, and the public sector must look at ways to outdo the private sector. It is just ridiculous.”
“What we did with the Ghana Infectious Disease Center (GIDC) shows the results of healthy collaboration and cooperation between the private and public sector.”
Senyo Hosi
He also asserted that the project was evidence of the efficiency the private sector can bring to bear on the public sector. He then admonished Ghanaians to not see these sectors as two different worlds.
“Ultimately who is the government? It is us the people. Ultimately, who empowers the public sector operatives to run affairs? It is us the people. Who are the drivers and founders of our GDP? It us the people.
“Ghanaians cannot continue to see the private and public sector as two different worlds. No! they are one world in shared spaces. They have varied functions but very possible shared functionality.”
Senyo Hosi
Also, he charged Government to learn from the Ghana Infectious Disease Centre (GIDC) project. According to him, the Government can learn a thing or two about project management and cost management.
Government projects could be less costly
Mr. Hosi bemoaned that usually, Government projects which are not even sophisticated are constructed using huge sums of money when such projects could have been less costly.
“Government can learn about project management and cost management with projects from what happened with us building the GIDC.
“I mean for a project to have been delivered that way, it tells you something. We have similar projects going for as much as fifteen, twenty or thirty-two million dollars. It tells you how many more of these we can actually deliver;if we actually cut down on the waste and the inefficiencies in our procurement system and corruption.”
Senyo Hosi
Additionally, he said that when he heard of Government’s decision to build 88 district hospitals, he was happy about it. However, he is quite disappointed that till now, Government has not engaged the private sector,;after the successful building of GIDC, on how these 88 hospitals can be constructed with less cost.
He also deduced that Ghanaians are more focused on the procurement aspect of things than the delivery of social services that sustain and impact the nation.
According to him, a lot of people are suffering in the country. And it is very painful to see people focus on procuring things for themselves than delivering these services that are meant to ease the suffering of these people.
His disappointment, he explained, is with the government as a machinery, not seeking to understand what has been achieved and how they can take learnings from it.
According to him, “people want to make plans for 32million dollar hospitals so that they can take out their share of the money, hence they are not interested in hearing about how someone else has been able to build an equally efficient 6million dollar hospital.”
