Parliament has approved the sum of GH₵22.80 billion for the activities of the Ministry of Health for the year ending December 31, 2026.
GH₵16.25 billion, or 71.25 percent, is set aside for employee remuneration, GH₵4.51 billion, or 19.79 percent, for goods and services, and GH₵2.04 billion, or 8.96 percent, for capital expenditures.
The Ghanaian government continues to be the ministry’s primary source of funding, providing 71.40 percent of the overall allotment.
This is followed by the ministry’s internally generated revenues, which constitute 26.35 per cent, while donor funding in the form of loans and grants combined accounts for 2.25 per cent of the ministry’s overall budget for this year.
The health service delivery sub-programme receives the majority of the ministry’s 2026 budget, accounting for 82.10 percent of the total.
Management and administration receives 10.34 per cent of the allocation, while 4.62 per cent is allotted to human resource for development, with 2.94 per cent allocated to health sector regulation.
With the budget approval, the ministry intends to focus on progressing and completing ongoing projects, such as the construction and equipping of CHPS compounds/health centers in selected locations across the country, the reconstruction of the La General Hospital, Agenda 111 projects, the rehabilitation of the Juaboso Hospital, and the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital Maternity Block.
Furthermore, projects approved for start-up include the construction of 12 CHPs compounds in strategic locations, psychiatric hospital projects, the construction of a specialist hospital at Ajumako Bisease, the redevelopment of Ho Teaching Hospital, the construction of a 500-bed paediatric hospital in Accra, the construction of Central Medical Stores, and the construction and completion of district hospitals in Shama, Bole, Bawku, Akatsi, and Sandema.
The Minister of Health, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, informed the House that the GH₵22.80 billion budget did not include allocations for the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) or the Ghana Medical Trust Fund.
Adding the allocations from the NHIS (GH₵9.04 billion) and the Ghana Medical Trust Fund (GH₵2.259 billion) yields a total of around GH₵34.22 billion.
He confirmed that all 13,500 nurses recruited in 2024 had been paid.
He explained that whenever recruitment occurs, financial provisions must be made for it.
“Mr Speaker, if you recruit in 2024 for the sake of elections and you do not make any financial provision, it is as good as you have not recruited because what we have said is that we have put 13,500 nurses and midwives on the payroll in 2025,” he stated.
The minister reiterated that Agenda 111 initiatives would not be abandoned by the government.
He announced, “His excellency, the President, has indicated on several occasions that any ongoing project he has inherited will be continued and it will never be abandoned.”
Regarding the matter of patient medical records, Mr. Akandoh explained that the ministry has begun implementing the Ghana Health Information Management System at a number of teaching hospitals, transferring the program from one department to another.
“So, it is never the case that we have left the records missing and therefore records of patients cannot be treated.”
“We have created the exchanges and therefore whenever they get to any facility and they plug in, all the data will be reconstructed and no patient will lose his or her data,” he reiterated.
Source: newsthemegh.com