Infractions in LHIMS contract now with Attorney General - Health Minister

The Minister of Health, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, has disclosed that irregularities identified in the Lightwave Health Information Management System (LHIMS) contract, signed under the previous NPP administration, have been referred to the Attorney General for advice and further action.

Speaking at the Government Accountability Series on Wednesday, October 29, Akandoh said investigations by his ministry uncovered significant breaches in the execution of the LHIMS agreement.

According to him, the contractor delivered less than half of the planned health facility connections but still received more than $77 million, representing over 70 percent of the total contract sum.

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The Minister explained that the government has since procured a new platform, the Ghana Healthcare Information Management System (GHIMS), to replace the malfunctioning LHIMS and ensure seamless healthcare delivery nationwide.

“Since we began this journey, all stakeholders have been on board, from the CEOs of the teaching hospitals, medical superintendents, EOCO, the Attorney General, to the Minister of Communications. The issues of legality and security have been referred to the Attorney General for advice and appropriate action,” he said.

Akandoh further noted that the Lightwave contract was never submitted to Parliament for approval.

“It was never a contract considered by Parliament. The vendor’s conduct made renegotiation efforts impossible. They acted in bad faith,” he stated.

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He also mentioned that the government had requested Lightwave to hand over control of the system and its infrastructure to the state, as stipulated in the contract.

However, challenges arose because the system was hosted on a cloud server in India, restricting Ghana’s control over the platform.

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