The Ranking Member on Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC), Samuel Atta Mills, has accused the Ministry of Health of running what he called “organised crime” over car loans that have gone unpaid for years.
At a PAC sitting on Thursday, October 8, officials from the ministry told the committee they have recovered just GH¢487,000 of the GH¢10.7 million owed, as at the end of September.
In Mr Atta Mills’s view, the trouble started when the ministry gave cars to people who did not qualify for them.
“We know these people don’t qualify to drive cars because of their salaries, and then we bypass the system, we give them the cars, and they choose when and how they are going to pay,” he said.
“If this is an organised crime, I don’t know what else it is. This is organised crime being encouraged by the Minister of Health,” he added.
He also wanted to know about beneficiaries who have retired or died without clearing their loans, and said he would name them in public.
“A son may be driving his father’s car who has passed on, but that car hasn’t been paid for and then what he’s doing is he’s flexing with the car,” he said.
When the Chair of the committee, Abena Osei-Asare, asked how much is owed by retired and deceased beneficiaries, officials said though they have the figure, they didn’t have it with them at the time, and promised to pass it on to management.
A ministry representative also told the committee that a list of defaulters had been given to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) to help with recovery, but Mr Atta Mills was not impressed.
“Was it DVLA who gave them those cars? Was it DVLA who organised that crime?” he asked.
In his view, getting the cars back is the ministry’s job, and it needs a dedicated recovery team to do it instead of relying on others.
“What you need to do is you need to have a recovery unit or a recovery team who go and collect all these cars. Somebody who will stop you in the middle of the highway and take the car away from you because you got it fraudulently,” he said.
Officials explained that the DVLA has in fact been helping. It refuses to renew a defaulter’s roadworthy certificate until the loan is cleared, and that is how the ministry has recovered the GH¢487,000.
Deductions yet to start
According to the ministry, about 597 beneficiaries have defaulted, although the audit report puts the figure at roughly 590 with only 234 of them still on the public payroll.
Officials say about GH¢8.86 million is owed by those who are, while the rest have either retired or died.
The ministry says it wrote to the Controller and Accountant General’s Department (CAGD) in February 2026, asking it to start deducting the money from the salaries of those still on the payroll. Officials expect about GH¢774,000 a month once that begins, with the debt cleared within two years.
But the deductions have still not started, and the committee was clearly unhappy with how vague the timelines were. One official said October, another said November, with both indicating it depends on the CAGD.
In the end the Chair spoke directly to the Controller and Accountant General, asking that deductions begin by October 31, 2026, so the ministry can recover the money within two financial years.
Background
The loans come from the old car revolving fund, which ran from 2013 to 2020. Officials said anyone who failed to pay after 2020 attracts 22% simple interest. They added that the fund was first financed with bank loans, and that recoveries are now going back into settling those loans.
The ministry also said a new committee has drawn up a fresh policy for the fund, under which applicants will be vetted to make sure they have room for deductions.
“If you don’t have space for the deduction, don’t take the car,” one official said.
Two things to check before it goes out: Abena Osei-Asare’s name isn’t in the transcript, so confirm it against the video, and confirm whether Mills said “Minister of Health” or “Ministry of Health” in that quote, since the two are different accusations.
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