US reopens talks with Ghana over rejected health compact – Mahama

President John Dramani Mahama has disclosed that the United States is seeking renewed discussions with Ghana to review a health compact agreement previously rejected by the government.

He made the disclosure in Goaso during a Citizens’ Engagement on the final day of his two-day Resetting Ghana Tour of the Ahafo Region, in response to a question about the agreement.

The President recalled explaining Ghana’s reasons for rejecting the proposed compact during an address at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York last month.

“I have spoken about it at the time I was in New York, however they have come again and they want us to sit down and review the agreement, so that things that we are not happy about they would either change them or remove them. So, there is a way for us to sit down with them and have a dialogue on it,” the President said.

Mr Mahama identified the proposed sharing of Ghana’s national pathogen profiles and citizens’ private medical records with the United States as one of the key concerns that informed the government’s position.

He said Ghana was uncomfortable with those provisions, which remain among the issues the two countries would need to address as discussions on the agreement resume.