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Ghana�s premier hospital, the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, has been caught in the web of cheating, after it imposed illegal fees on patients who patronise the facility to seek medical care. According to sources, the nation�s number one health facility has astronomically increased almost all the fees it used to charge patients without any legal basis. Patients who did not have any prior knowledge about the illegal fees they were being asked to pay protested, but that did not stop the facility from squeezing the money from them. Information obtained by The Chronicle indicates that on July 19 this year, the Ministry of Finance, on behalf of 29 government sector institutions, laid the Fees and Charges Amendment Regulation LI 2206 in Parliament, seeking approval for them to increase fees they charge for the services they render to the public. The Chronicle gathered that under Article 11 clause 7 of the 1992 Constitution, anytime such a Legislative Instrument (LI) is sent to Parliament, it will take 21 sitting days of the House for it to become law, if two thirds of members did not object to it. The said Article reads: (7) Any Order, Rule or Regulation made by a person or authority under a power conferred by this Constitution, or any other law, shall (a) Be laid before Parliament; (b) be published in the Gazzette on the day it is laid before Parliament; and (c) come into force at the expiration of twenty-one sitting days after being so laid unless Parliament, before the expiration of the twenty-one days, annuls the Order, Rule or Regulation by the votes of not less than two-thirds of all the members of Parliament. The Chronicle established that Korle Bu Teaching Hospital was among the 29 public sector institutions, which also include the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA), Narcotic Control Board, National Road Safety Commission, and Food and Drugs Authority among others, whose LI for the increment of the user fees they charge have been submitted to Parliament, which would take 21 sitting days to become law. The LI was laid on July 19 this year, but the House went on recess on the July 27, came back on Monday September 16, and rose again on Thursday July 19. This means that Parliament has not sat for the mandatory 21 days, as spelt out in the article 11 clause 7 of the Constitution, for the LI to mature, yet the authorities at Korle Bu have gone ahead to impose the new fees on their patients. All efforts made by this reporter to contact the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the premier hospital, Mr. Mustapha Salifu, on his MTN cell phone to explain the basis for the new fees, proved futile. The Daily Graphic, however, quoted a management source in its Saturday publication, a saying that the new charges were part of fees and charges approved by Parliament in July this year for public medical facilities. �Korle Bu�s request was part of a large proposal submitted to Parliament by the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning for the review of service charges by some 29 ministries, departments and agencies (MDA�s),� the paper quoted the source as saying. The Chronicle of the Subsidiary Legislation Committee in Parliament, which oversees the laying of LIs and other instruments, Osei Bonsu Amoah, confirmed in a telephone interview with The Chronicle yesterday, that Fees and charges Amendment Regulation LI 2206, of which Korle Bu is part, had not matured. According to him, if indeed, Korle Bu was charging the new fees, it would be unconstitutional, because the LI had not matured. O. B. Amoah further told The Chronicle that if other institutions such as the Driver Vehicle and Licensing Authority, Food and Drugs Authority, Road Safety Commission had also increased their fees, it would equally amount to an illegality.