Health Sector Loses $500m Annually To Fraud

Ghana’s health sector is estimated to lose about $500 million every year due to large amounts of waste, fraud, corruption, diversion of resources and accounting irregularities.

The Founder and President of mPedigree, Mr Bright Simons, who disclosed this in Accra yesterday, said although Ghana spent more of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the health sector than most countries in the sub-region, it did not yield the desired impact on the sector.

He said finding innovative ways of addressing the wastage in the sector was critical.

Mr Simons was speaking at a roundtable discussion organised in Accra by mPedigree, a technology social enterprise, with support from the World Bank.

Huge problem

Mr Simons said the country had a huge problem in the area of medicines as there was a high diversion rate in the public sector with most medicines finding their way into the private sector.

According to him, the rate of progress in the sector did not match the expenditure and suggested that what the country needed were controls which were up to date and up to the task.

Source: Graphic.com