(Photos provided by Huawei)
A member of Parliament’s Health Committee has cautioned that Ghana is not ready to fund its health sector independently, warning that cutting ties with development partners without first fixing internal inefficiencies would put critical health services at risk.
Speaking on PM Express, the Member of Parliament for Akim Oda and former Deputy Minister of Health, Alexander Akwasi Acquah, said that while self-reliance is a worthy goal, the existing health financing architecture cannot sustain the system on its own.
“Well, currently, I would say no, we just have to do something about it,” he stated, when asked whether Ghana is prepared to wean itself from donor support.
His comments come days after Ghana formally rejected a proposed five-year bilateral health assistance deal with the United States. According to Reuters, Ghana declined to proceed after the Mahama government objected to conditions requiring the sharing of sensitive national health data as part of the proposed agreement, which would have delivered $109 million in US health assistance over five years.
Acquah argued that even with aid in place, the system struggles to function efficiently. He cited the persistent challenge of clearing donated medical supplies at Ghana’s ports, noting that bureaucratic delays and taxes on such consignments further undermine the value of external support.
“Even though we had aid in terms of logistics from foreign partners, we could not just clear them from the ports,” he said, questioning how the sector would cope without any external backing at all.
The lawmaker pointed to the Abuja Declaration, which calls on African governments to allocate at least 15 percent of their national budgets to health, but noted that even that framework still envisages continued support from development partners rather than full financial independence.
He said the impact of declining US support is already visible across several health programmes that had relied heavily on American funding. “The health sector is suffering, because I know what is happening, especially when the USA and others got cut off,” he said, adding that programme managers within the Ghana Health Service (GHS) had raised concerns about sustainability during recent engagements.
Acquah called for urgent action to eliminate waste within the public health system, echoing sentiments expressed by economist Nii Moi Thompson. “There is a lot of waste within our public sector. We have to look into our systems and cut it off,” he said.
Rather than an abrupt exit from donor dependence, the MP advocated a gradual and deliberate transition, urging the government to use the window of continued engagement from other international partners to redesign its financing approach and strengthen domestic resource mobilisation. “It gives us an opportunity to start looking beyond it. Let’s look at our source,” he said.
