Health Minister Kwabena Mintah Akandoh has clarified the challenges his ministry faced in putting over 13,000 newly recruited nurses and midwives on government payroll, blaming the previous administration for issuing clearance without financial backing.

His comments follow accusations from the Minority in Parliament that the Minister was misleading health professionals about the status of financial clearances and payments.

The Minority claims the previous government had already allocated funds and accused the current administration of failing to extend the clearance in time. They argue that the Minister’s move to seek Cabinet approval is unnecessary and an attempt to cover up delays in addressing the issue.

Speaking in an interview on The Point of View on Channel One TV on Wednesday October 15, the Minister explained that although clearance was issued in 2024 for the recruitment of about 13,500 nurses and midwives, no funds were allocated to pay them.

“The reality is that in 2024, government started to recruit nurses and midwives. So the summary is that they recruited about 13,500 nurses and midwives and issued clearance,” he said.

“Once you issue clearance, you must make financial provision. Clearance is not just a paper… you issue clearance when indeed you can pay when you recruit the people.”

According to Mr. Akandoh, the clearance expired at the end of 2024, but by that time, none of the recruited personnel had been added to the payroll.

“The clearance expired on 31st December 2024. What it means is that before the expiration… you must necessarily have all these 13,500 people on the payroll. As at the end of 31st December 2024, not a single one of the 13,500 people were on the payroll,” he said.

He noted that the newly recruited nurses started work around August 2024 but were not budgeted for, which left the current administration with limited options.

“When we came, there were two options available because there was no allocation for these nurses and midwives. One — let them go home and look for the funding and extend the clearance and then they come and work. Two — you can allow them to work while you look at how you will pay them, because that was not captured as part of our budget,” he explained.

The Health Minister said efforts have since been made to gradually absorb the workers into the payroll in collaboration with the Finance Ministry.

“I have been collaborating with the Minister responsible for Finance, and out of the 13,500, we managed to put about 7,000 of them on the payroll. So half of them were being paid,” he said.

“The reality is that we captured about 10,000 of them on the payroll, but only 7,000 on the payroll were being paid. Some of them have received payments from March thereabout. We were onboarding them gradually.”

Mr. Akandoh added that the situation became more complicated as further financial obligations came to light.

“It got to a time that we realised that there were a lot of things — more than even the 13,500 nurses they had recruited. There were arrears of allowances, there were conditions of services that had been signed and they were not implemented… So it was like the budget was becoming much bigger,” he said.

He explained that the decision was made to return to Cabinet for further financial approval to avoid budget overruns.

“So we realised that if we don’t go back to Cabinet, it will throw the budget off,” the Minister stated.