By Lawrence Odoom/Phalonzy
The Minister for Health, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, has announced that government intends to fully settle all outstanding salary arrears owed to 13,500 health workers by the end of July 2026, ending months of protracted payment delays.
Addressing the issue on the Citi Breakfast Show on Wednesday, April 22, the Minister disclosed that his outfit has already activated a phased disbursement schedule to liquidate the accrued arrears.
He indicated that by the close of April, affected nurses and midwives will receive two months of their outstanding entitlements, with an additional three months slated for payment by the end of June, culminating in a complete clearance by July.
Akandoh attributed the backlog to a structural misalignment between recruitment and fiscal provisioning, stating that the administration inherited a scenario in which thousands of health professionals had been engaged without commensurate budgetary allocation.
The Minister further revealed that Ghana’s health sector has witnessed an exponential increase in trained personnel in recent years, with the workforce expanding from approximately 74,000 to nearly 100,000 by the end of 2025, a significant proportion of whom remain unabsorbed into the public system.
While conceding that vacancies persist within the health sector, Akandoh underscored that employment is inextricably linked to fiscal space, affirming that government can only recruit within the limits of its budgetary capacity to remunerate.
“But there are spaces that have not been filled. The problem has to do with fiscal space, that is, money, so you can only employ what you can pay for within your budget.
“We inherited a situation where about 13,500 nurses and midwives had been employed without financial provision.
“By the grace of God, we managed to get all of them onto the payroll, and we have staggered their arrears. By the end of April, we are paying two months; by the end of June, we are paying three months; and by the end of July, we are clearing everything,” he said.