The Minority in Parliament has accused Health Minister Kwabena Mintah Akandoh of misleading health professionals with claims about securing fresh financial clearance for recruitment, arguing the approvals he’s celebrating had already been granted under the previous administration.
The confrontation erupted following Akandoh’s press briefing on Monday, October 13, where he announced Cabinet approval for recruiting doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and other health workers. The Minister also stated the government had secured funding to settle outstanding arrears owed to these professionals.
But the Minority isn’t buying it. Dr. Nana Ayew Afriyie, Ranking Member on the Health Committee and MP for Effiduase Asokore, described the Minister’s statement as politically deceptive during a counter press conference at Parliament. He insisted the clearance being touted as new had actually expired at the end of December 2024.
“By January 1st of this year, the Akufo Addo government had paid about 7,000 nurses and midwives,” Dr. Afriyie stated. He argued that money had already been allocated for 15,000 recruits, with thousands having started work before the current administration took office.
According to the Minority spokesperson, the Ghana Health Service employed the remaining workers despite delays, and institutions never rejected them. This raises questions, he argued, about why Cabinet approval would now be necessary when clearance had already been granted.
The existing clearance expired on December 31, 2024, Dr. Afriyie noted, yet the government failed to renew it promptly, leaving many health professionals in uncertainty about their employment status. He characterized the Minister’s recent announcement as an attempt to repackage an old policy for political advantage.
The Minister’s Monday briefing disclosed that financial clearance had been secured for payment of 17,909 nurses, midwives, and allied health interns who started national service in early 2024, along with 13,500 others recruited and posted late last year.
The controversy unfolds against a backdrop of mounting frustration among health workers. Nearly 7,000 newly recruited nurses and midwives staged a major protest in Accra on October 2, 2025, claiming they’d not received salaries despite being posted as far back as December 2024 following financial clearance.
Dr. Afriyie accused the government of creating a problem through mismanagement and then attempting to fix it ten months later while seeking credit for solving a crisis of its own making. He described the situation as throwing dust into Ghanaians’ eyes.
The Minority further alleged that the government has been mishandling health sector recruitment for months and is now trying to mask its inefficiency with what they called empty public relations gestures. The criticism suggests deeper frustration with how the administration has managed health sector human resources.
What makes this dispute particularly contentious is the timing. Health worker shortages remain acute across Ghana’s public health system, and delays in clearing salaries or finalizing recruitment create genuine hardship for professionals who’ve already been deployed to facilities.
The question of whether clearance granted under one administration carries over or requires renewal under a new government involves administrative and legal complexities that both sides are now debating publicly. The Minority’s position is that valid clearance doesn’t expire simply because political power changed hands.
From the Minister’s perspective, securing Cabinet approval and funding represents necessary steps to ensure payment actually happens. But the Minority sees this as unnecessary bureaucracy that delayed what should have been automatic continuation of approved recruitment.
The dispute also reflects broader tensions in Ghana’s political system about continuity versus change when administrations transition. Do new governments inherit obligations and clearances from predecessors, or do they need to independently approve and authorize such commitments?
For the thousands of health workers caught in the middle, the political debate matters less than when they’ll receive salaries and whether their employment will be formalized. Many have been working for months without pay, creating financial strain and undermining morale in an already stressed health system.
The Minority’s challenge puts pressure on the Health Minister to provide clearer explanations about what specifically changed between the previous clearance and current approvals. If money was allocated and workers already employed, what justified the ten month delay in processing payments?
Whether this remains a political spat or develops into sustained scrutiny of health sector recruitment processes will depend partly on how effectively the government addresses the underlying payment and employment issues. For now, both sides have staked positions, and health workers continue waiting for resolution.