Is President Mahama Not Undermining His Own Health Minister?

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

Garden City, New York

July 24, 2014

E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net

The decision by President John Dramani Mahama to replace the once ousted Chief Executive Officer of Ghana's flagship health center, the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, Rev. Albert Okpoti-Botchway, with Dr. Gilbert Buckle, may well signal the beginning of the president's rocky relationship with his newly-appointed Health Minister, Dr. Kwaku Agyemang-Mensah (See "Mahama Intervenes in Korle-Bu Rumpus; Okpoti Out, Buckle In" MyJoyOnline.com 7/24/14).

It may be recalled that Rev. Okpoti-Botchway came under fire for allegedly authorizing the use of funds internally generated by hospital staff and administration for the purchase of automobiles for some senior management staff of Korle-Bu. Some senior staff leaders pressured then-Health Minister Sherry Aryittey (now Minister for Fisheries) to remove Rev. Okpoti-Botchway and promptly got their wish. At the time, as I vividly recall, the Health Minister agreed with the workers that the normal procedure for executing the hire-purchasing of the automobiles had been flouted by the Korle-Bu CEO and the officials involved in the purchasing.

What is interesting, however, is that shortly upon his appointment as the new Health Minister, Dr. Agyemang-Mensah decided to give Rev. Okpoti-Botchway the proverbial benefit of the doubt by reinstating the ousted CEO, while further investigations were conducted to ascertain whether he had been afforded due process prior to his previous dismissal by Ms. Aryittey, the former Health Minister. The fact that a massive celebration among the workers had greeted the initial dismissal of the then-acting Korle-Bu CEO, naturally meant that Rev. Okpoti-Botchway's reinstatement would provoke the fury of the workers, who immediately resorted to a massive protest demonstration, once again, against the reinstated CEO.

It is also significant to highlight the fact that Rev. Okpoti-Botchway had won the support of the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Korle-Bu, Mr. Eddy Annan, who reportedly envisaged the reinstateent of Rev. Okpoti-Botchway as a vindication of his position that the acting CEO had done absolutely nothing unbecoming of a personnel of his status to warrant a dismissal. Now some of the senior staff workers are calling for the dissolution and reconstitution of Korle-Bu's Board of Directors. As of this media preparation (7/27/14), Mr. Annan was reported to have tendered his resignation letter to President Mahama, warning about some entrenched Mafia elements among the senior staff workers at the hospital. The latter promptly hit back, vehemently rejecting such characterization.

At any rate, in personally intervening to name a new CEO for the hospital, the President very likely must have fathomed himself to have opportunely saved his new Health Minister from an unnecessary and premature confrontation with Korle-Bu's senior staff workers. And this is all well and good, except for the equally significant fact that Mr. Mahama may also well have laid the ground for the workers to have an easy go at Dr. Agyemang-Mensah.

In short, if Mr. Mahama cannot trust the judgment of his own Health Minister, then, perhaps, he ought not to have appointed Dr. Agyemang-Mensah to the job, to begin with. Now, the logical follow-up move for the President would have to be the immediate dissolution and reconstitution of the Korle-Bu Board of Directors. My good guess here, assuming the President leaves things as they are presently, is that Dr. Agyemang-Mensah is highly unlikely to stay at his new post for any remarkable temporal span. My well-measured prediction is that it will not be long before the new Korle-Bu CEO, Dr. Buckle, is named to replace the Health Minister.

On the whole, Dr. Buckle's professional credentials are very impressive; and he also seems to be more than qualified for the job. Then also, from the look of his curriculum vitae, Dr. Buckle appears to be quite young and energetic. What I am primarily concerned with here, though, is the question of principles. And on the latter score, Mr. Mahama clearly seems to be more than a little bit wanting.

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