President John Dramani Mahama has justified government’s decision to reject a health compact from the United States, describing the conditions attached to it as humiliating and an affront to Ghana’s sovereignty.
The United States is said to have offered about $100 million to Ghana to support its health sector through a compact to replace U.S. aid funding, but with demands including Ghana’s pathogen profile and the medical records of Ghanaians.
A demand the President says he flatly rejected with the full force of Cabinet.
Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations engagement, a side event of the United Nations General Assembly, President Mahama said Ghana will not be a dumping ground under his watch.
“Yeah, we received the health compact from the U.S. to replace U.S. aid funding. And Ghana is a sovereign nation, and we have our processes. We’re a democratic country,” the President said.
According to him, when the compact was received, the Ministry of Health studied it and prepared what he described as a Cabinet Information Paper, which was subsequently brought before Cabinet for consideration.
“And so, when the compact was received, the health ministry studied it and did what we call a cabinet information paper. And so the compact was brought to cabinet, and we flagged several things in the compact,” he recounted.
“One, it says that we shall give the United States our pathogen profile. It means that diseases that are endemic in Ghana, what are diseases endemic in Ghana, what is the pathogen profile of a country. I’m sure there are medical experts who understand that better than me. And it also says we should give our medical records. I mean, who takes another country’s medical records? And so that was strange,” he said.
He continued: “And then it says we would have to put up a certain amount of money as part of the program into health care. And then it also says that any medications or any medical products that shall be brought into our country, our Food and Drug Administration has absolutely no right to inspect.”
The President said the conditions were humiliating.
“I mean, it was humiliating. And so it was the compact that was thrown out in record time in our cabinet. I’ve never seen anything thrown out as fast as that,” he stated.
“And so of course we rejected it. And we asked the health minister to inform the U.S. ambassador that we didn’t need it. We’ll manage ourselves, you know, and for a paltry hundred and something million dollars. And so we said, no, we don’t want it. And we’re doing fine,” President Mahama added.
