Ghana is not yet ready to walk away from donor support, according to former Deputy Health Minister, Alexander Akwasi Acquah.
Speaking on JoyNews PM Express, the Akim Oda MP and member of Parliament’s Health Committee said an abrupt break from external support would expose deep weaknesses in the country’s health financing system.
“Well, currently, I would say no, we just have to do something about it.”
His comments come after Ghana rejected a US health deal, a development that has renewed debate over the country’s preparedness to finance critical parts of its health system without foreign assistance.
Mr Acquah said the country still struggles even when support arrives.
“Because even though I was in my former position as the Deputy Minister, I could not come to terms with the fact that we had aid in terms of logistics from foreign partners, and we could not just clear them from the ports.”
“You remember that big story, so even if the aid that is coming, we still want to take taxes on them to support our budgets, and now we say we want to win ourselves totally from them. How do we survive?”
He argued that even the 15 per cent commitment under the Abuja Declaration still anticipates support from development partners.
“This 15% declaration by the Abuja declaration still demanded that there’s that level of support from developed countries, developed partners, and so kindly, we just have to buy the bullet.”
The former deputy minister said the immediate task should be fixing inefficiencies in public spending.
“And like Dr Nii Moi Thompson said, we may have to look into our systems and cut off all the waste, because there, there is a lot of waste within our public sector.”
He warned that the health sector is already feeling the pressure from shrinking aid flows.
“You cannot take away the health sector, you know, because most often than not, we have relied on aid. It’s become one of the major motivations.”
“I’m telling you, the health sector is suffering, because I know what is happening, especially when the USA and others got cut off.”
He said some parts of the sector had depended heavily on that support.
“You know, there are certain areas that got a lot of motivation from some of this aid, and now that they are not coming, it’s become critical.”
Mr Acquah disclosed that recent engagements with the Ghana Health Service highlighted the risks ahead.
“Very recently, I think about a month or so, we met the Ghana Health Service boss and their agencies and all the program managers in their presentation gave us an indication of what is ahead if we do not sit up to look at the finance and health financing.”
He said while the US has pulled back, other partners remain engaged, giving Ghana time to rethink its strategy.
“I thank God, it’s only the US that is playing this kind of game with us. There are some other donor agencies that are still with us, you know, and so it gives us an opportunity to start looking beyond it. And let’s look at our source.”
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