Mahama defends rejection of $100m US Health Compact, cites ‘humiliating’ conditions
President John Dramani Mahama has defended Ghana’s rejection of a proposed $100 million health compact from the United States, describing some of its conditions as humiliating and a threat to national sovereignty.
Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on Friday, President Mahama disclosed that the draft agreement required Ghana to surrender its pathogen profile and national medical records to the US.
“It says that we shall give the United States our pathogen profile… And then it also says we should give our medical records. I mean, who takes another country’s medical records?” the President said.
He also cited a provision that would have exempted all medical products imported under the programme from inspection by Ghana’s Food and Drugs Authority (FDA).”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. I mean, it was humiliating,” he added.
President Mahama said the Health Ministry presented the draft to Cabinet as an information paper, but it was rejected in record time.
“I’ve never seen anything thrown out as fast as that. And so, of course, we rejected it,” he said.
The compact, valued at about $109 million over five years, was part of Washington’s “America First Global Health Strategy” intended to replace USAID funding.
The President said the Health Minister has been directed to inform the US Ambassador of Ghana’s decision, insisting the country will manage its health sector independently.
He noted that US aid cuts had created a $74 million gap in Ghana’s health budget, affecting medical research, laboratories, HIV testing and antiretroviral drugs, prompting his government’s ‘Accra Reset’ initiative to boost local production of medicines and vaccines and reduce dependence on foreign aid.
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