Mahama says Ghana rejected US health compact over data, funding and drug-inspection terms

Pinned summary · as of 04:43

Ghana's Cabinet turned down a health cooperation compact offered by the United States after the Health Ministry flagged several of its provisions, President John Dramani Mahama told an audience in New York on Friday, 25 September. The compact was meant to make up for health funding Ghana used to receive through USAID, the American aid agency. The US Embassy has since answered the president's account of what the document required.

What we know

• On Friday, 25 September 2026, Mr Mahama defended Ghana's refusal to sign the compact at a session organised by the Council on Foreign Relations, a US foreign policy body, in New York City.
• The proposal was offered as a substitute for health money Ghana previously received through USAID. Cabinet turned it down after the Ministry of Health reviewed it and sent Cabinet an information paper on it.
• The president said the compact obliged Ghana to hand the United States its pathogen profile, meaning the disease picture of the country, and its medical records. Ghana would also have had to commit a set sum of its own money as counterpart funding.
• According to Mr Mahama, the text also stopped the Food and Drugs Authority from checking any medicines or medical products that came in under the programme.
• Mr Mahama called the conditions humiliating. "It was humiliating," he said, adding that Cabinet dismissed the compact faster than anything he had seen.
• The president said the Health Minister was instructed to tell the American ambassador that Ghana would cope on its own.
• The rejection was decided in April 2026, months before the New York remarks, according to reports that place the Cabinet decision and the end of the offer in that month.
• Mr Mahama has tied the launch of the Accra Reset initiative to the withdrawal of US aid, and describes the rejection as part of a wider push for health self-reliance, with more medicines and vaccines made in Africa and less dependence on outside financing.
• The US Embassy in Ghana responded by defending its request for health-related data, and the United States argued that such data matters for disease surveillance and planning. The Ghanaian government said further partnerships remain possible, provided any future deal safeguards citizens' personal medical information and the national interest.
• The rapper Sarkodie thanked Mr Mahama in a post on X for rejecting the compact, and said he hopes Ghana will one day regain the full respect it deserves.

What's disputed / unconfirmed

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  The US Embassy, through Rolf Olson, rejected the concern about patient privacy. He said Washington wanted aggregated data with no personally identifiable details, used mainly to assess health programmes, and said the text covered sharing pathogen specimens for disease surveillance. The US State Department told The Press Radio it does not share the details of bilateral talks. The embassy's detailed account comes from MyNewsGH alone.
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  Reports differ on the money in the compact. Nkonkonsa, Pulse Ghana (citing Reuters) and The Press Radio described roughly US$109 million of US health support spread across five years, with a contribution from Ghana, whereas Citi Newsroom and Onua Online put the offer at around $100 million. Mr Mahama, as quoted by The Vaultz News and Onua Online, called the sum a pittance of a hundred and something million dollars.
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  Mr Mahama said the abrupt end of US aid removed $174 million from Ghana's budget and left the health sector short by $74 million a year, hitting HIV testing laboratories and antiretroviral drug supplies, and that this prompted the Accra Reset initiative. Graphic Online carried these figures, and Opemsuo 104.7 and The Vaultz News repeated them, but no official source has confirmed them. The Vaultz News also cited US government figures of $219 million in total aid to Ghana in 2024, of which $96 million was for health.
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  The US Embassy put its health spending in Ghana at $82 million during the Trump administration's first year, $53 million for fiscal year 2026 and $2.2 billion since 2012. It also said some existing programmes are being phased out now that the agreement was not concluded. These figures come from the embassy alone.
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  Ghanaian News (Canada) reported that Cabinet rejected the agreement unanimously, and that the opposition New Patriotic Party questioned the government's account and urged the release of the full compact so the public can check the claims about medical records. Ghanaian News (Canada) also said supporters praised the stance on data sovereignty while critics wanted the document published. No other report carries these points.
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  The Vaultz News reported that negotiations began in November 2025 and that the US side had fixed 24 April as the date to finish. It also quoted Arnold Kavaarpuo of the Data Protection Commission saying the data access sought went well beyond what the stated purpose would need, and Africa CDC's Jean Kaseya voicing concern about data and pathogen sharing in such agreements generally. These points have not been carried by other reports.

Why it matters for Ghana

Health funding that once came through USAID supported services such as HIV testing and treatment, so the decision affects patients and clinics that relied on it. The three provisions Mr Mahama named, on health data, counterpart funding and drug inspection, bear directly on who holds Ghanaians' information and who checks the medicines sold in pharmacies and hospitals in Accra, Kumasi and beyond. With the embassy saying some existing programmes are being phased out, the government's health budget faces pressure to cover what is lost.