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Members of Consultants and Specialists Forum together with the Korle Bu Senior Staff Association (KOSSA) have issued a two-month ultimatum to the current management of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH) to impress upon the former Board Chairman, Mr. Eddie Annan, to refund the monies he “fraudulently” paid to his cronies.

The angry members of the two recognised associations of the nation’s premier hospital could not understand why Mr. Annan allegedly paid a whopping GH¢118,46.04 million, GHC31,669.82 million and GHC51,096,74 million to some former top executives of the hospital in the persons of Mr. Godfred Ahianyo (former Director in-charge of Auditing), Rev. Okpoti Botchway; (former Acting Chief Executive Officer) and Prof. Mrs. Effua Hesse (former Director of Medical Affairs) respectively.

The claims were made in a letter written by the Consultants and Specialist Forum and KOSSA respectively to the new Board Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of KBTH, Mr. Mawuli Sala, and Dr. Gilbert Buckle, and copied to Mr. Eddie Annan

According to the workers, the payments were effected without any proof of work done for the hospital by the said former executives and thus accused Mr. Annan of willfully causing financial loss to the state.

They insisted he should be made to refund the money within the next two months and that, failure by the former board chairman to refund the money would compel them to drag him to the law court in a bid to retrieve the money.

They hinted they would plead with the court to confiscate Mr. Annan’s assets for auctioning to recover the money for the hospital to enable it provide quality healthcare service to all Ghanaians.

The two-page letter which was dated Tuesday, June 23, 2015 and jointly signed by the members of the two staff associations, which copy Today intercepted noted that; “For some time now, KOSSA and the Consultants and Specialist Forum in agreement with current management and other key stakeholders took a stand to concentrate on developing the hospital and declaring the mess inherited from Mr. Annan-led board of KBTH from 2012 to 2014.”

The staff of the hospital in the letter said, they were not happy with the manner Mr. Annan was capitalising on the recent forensic audit report on the missing sums of money at the Pharmacy Department of KBTH to present himself as a saint in an attempt to mislead the general public to bring the name of the hospital into dispute.

The workers recounted that Mr. Annan moved from radio station-to-radio-station in Accra claiming that his action to spill the beans on bribe and corrupt practices by some workers of the hospital led to the workers gagging up against him.

The worrying development, the letter noted, compelled the members of the two staff associations of the hospital to tell Mr. Annan to either appreciate the mess he created or shut-up.

It pointed out that: “Mr. Annan’s inappropriate, criminal and illegal appointment of a board member of the hospital, Mr. Godfred Ahianyo, to the management position and finally making him a staff of the hospital against all advice of committing conflict of interest.”

The workers claimed the illegal payment to Godfred Ahianyo, amounted to GHC 118, 461.04 million, and called on the new board of KBTH to ensure that Mr. Annan  refund the money to the hospital.”

The letter also questioned Mr. Annan’s appointment of Rev. Kpoti Botchway (Non-Executive Boad member of KBTH) to the position of the Acting Chief Executive Officer of the hospital without an appointment letter.

That decision, they insisted was a clear case of conflict of interest and that Mr. Annan should be held responsible.

“Mr. Annan should note that  it was during his tenure  that monetary resources required for improving quality of health care service were used to purchase luxurious vehicles and distributed to his favourites….Mr. Annan should note that the authorised payment of GHC 51,096,74 million to Professor Effua Hesse as retirement gift to silence her is yet to be refunded. The illegal payment of board members allowance and strange introduction of board fees as well as persistent appreciable adjustments of the same throughout the period of his (Mr. Annan) stewardship stands at whopping GHC67, 577.75 million which is also yet to be refunded to the hospital,” the letter averred.

It cited an instance where Mr. Annan used the scarce funds of the hospital to buy Audi A6 Series which he originally registered into the name of his appointed CEO (Rev. Kpoti Botchway).

In the light of these above, the workers demanded from the new management of the Korle-Bu to recover all funds embezzled and misapplied by Mr. Annan and his management team within the next two months, adding that “anything short of this deadline will result in severe actions by us.”

The workers said they would  advise themselves if the new management fail to recover all the monies from Mr. Annan since his actions has currently put the KBTH in a very dire financial situation where basic medical supplies for patients  are in short of supply at the hospital.