The circumstances surrounding the meeting between the Minister for Health and Awerco on Friday, 10 July 2026, raise troubling concerns about the use of state power in what appears to be a commercial contractual dispute.
Awerco, which maintains that it supplied, delivered and installed the medical equipment for the Weija Gbawe Paediatric Hospital, attended the meeting seeking payment of outstanding sums to enable it to settle specialist subcontractors and suppliers who have remained unpaid because of the prolonged delay.
Instead of progress towards resolving the payment impasse, the meeting reportedly took an unexpected turn when officers from EOCO, who were allegedly present at the invitation of the Minister, arrested the contractor after the Minister walked out of the meeting. The reasons for EOCO’s involvement have not been publicly explained.
If there is no criminal complaint against the contractor, why was a state investigative agency brought into what is fundamentally a contractual dispute? Commercial disagreements are ordinarily resolved through negotiation, arbitration or the courts, not through threats and underhand tactics.
The public deserves answers. Was EOCO invited to investigate a genuine offence, or was its presence intended to intimidate a contractor whose primary demand is payment for work it says it has completed?
Transparency, fairness and due process are essential to maintaining confidence in public administration. Until a satisfactory explanation is provided, the events surrounding this meeting will continue to fuel concerns about the abuse of state power in the resolution of commercial disputes.
