Minister for Health, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, has revealed that beyond the “humiliating” terms of the United States (US) health compact, American authorities also piled pressure on Ghana to sign the deal — even imposing deadlines.
“In some cases, they were giving us deadlines. Can you imagine? Yes, they were giving us deadlines,” he disclosed during an interview on Joy News.
No Fear of Repercussions
Asked whether Ghana was not afraid of the consequences of rejecting the compact in its entirety, Akandoh said the government had no such fears, explaining that the rejection does not signal an end to relations with the US.
“We have not caused any harm to America. We still have a very good relationship with them,” he said, adding that Ghana had instead proposed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) which “is not one-sided and not binding.”
“If you are offering me assistance, I will say, oh, thank you, I will come over. At that point in time, you think we don’t need it, and there are other countries that may need it better than us,” he noted.
Akandoh said Ghana has continued to engage the Americans even after the rejection, including meetings with US officials on the margins of the World Health Organization (WHO) gathering.
He recalled that the rejection was conveyed diplomatically to the US Secretary of State, with the Foreign Affairs Minister present.
“We did it so politely, and that was it,” he said, adding that other areas of health cooperation with the United States “are still in motion.”
“I think we are determined not to disappoint our people. It doesn’t mean that because we are not okay with this one, we will end our relationship. We have a very fantastic relationship.”
The Minister stressed that he did not take the decision on his own and therefore had nothing to fear.
“I am a Minister of State. I’ve sworn an oath to defend this country, and I’m discharging my duties. I didn’t take the decision irrationally. The decision was taken by Cabinet — you heard the President say so. If there was something wrong with my recommendations, Cabinet would have thrown it off. So I don’t think I should be afraid of anything for serving my country.”
US Pushback
The Minister acknowledged that after President John Dramani Mahama publicly raised concerns about the compact, the US Embassy held a press conference where an official, Ralph Olsen, disputed the President’s claim that the agreement compromised Ghana’s sovereignty, insisting that the way the President had represented the compact “wasn’t exactly what it was.”
But Akandoh dismissed the rebuttal.
“There’s absolutely nothing that the President said that was not in the Compact. I received the Compact. We worked on it for months.”
He explained that when the initial document arrived with anomalies, Ghana asked the Americans to withdraw it so both parties could draft a fresh agreement together.
“They pushed, so I accepted their MOU, but on condition that there should be a joint interpretive committee — your end, our end — to review the same thing,” he said.
“And we did that in good faith. We worked on it for months trying to reach a compromise. There were provisions we said we were not happy with — can you remove them? And in some cases, they were giving us deadlines. Can you imagine? Yes, they were giving us deadlines.”
By Gifty Boateng