The Minister of Health, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, has accused his predecessor, Dr. Bernard Okoe Boye, of overpaying the contractor for the controversial Lightwave Health Information Management System (LHIMS) project.
Appearing before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Thursday, October 30, 2025, Mr. Akandoh reiterated what he described as serious irregularities in the execution of the project and urged Dr. Okoe-Boye to refrain from commenting on the matter.
“Mr. Chairman, today I woke up to a response from the immediate past Minister. And if anything at all, he should be keeping quiet. It’s not in his interest to be talking, because he overpaid the contractor,” he said.
According to the Health Minister, the contractor received over US$77 million, representing more than 70 percent of the total contract sum, despite completing less than half of the planned health facility connections.
“This is one of the things he said. He said that payments have been 62% from the Ministry of Finance and 68% from the National Health Insurance Authority, totaling 76.99 million paid. So, he has admitted that about 77 million has been paid, and 23 million dollars are outstanding.
As of December 2024, reconciliation showed an unutilized advance of 10.6 million yet to be expended by the vendor. And he is the one who paid for this. Why should he be talking?” he stated.
Mr. Akandoh further clarified that the LHIMS contract did not allow for pre-payment, insisting that funds were to be released only after work had been executed.
“Mr. Chairman, this is not a pre-payment procedure. So, you pay as and when you have executed the job. So, if you have paid more than the work you have done, you have been overpaid,” he added.
The exchange between the current and former Health Ministers comes amid ongoing scrutiny of the LHIMS contract, which has attracted public and institutional attention over transparency and value-for-money concerns.
