Senior Project Manager at Lightwave E-Healthcare, Eric Agyei, has revealed that the Minister of Health, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, was fully aware of the operations of Lightwave Health Information Systems (LHIS) during his tenure as Ranking Member on Parliament’s Health Committee.
According to him, the minister’s recent accusations against the company, including claims of holding Ghana’s health data to ransom, hosting parts of the system in India, and receiving excess payments, are surprising and inconsistent with his earlier stance.
Lightwave E-Healthcare is the company behind the LHIS platform, an electronic system designed to manage patient records across health facilities nationwide. However, in recent months, the platform has experienced challenges that have disrupted patient care, insurance processing, and hospital operations.
The situation has led to a public exchange between the Health Ministry and Lightwave E-Healthcare over the system’s management and contract terms. Mr Akandoh had alleged that the company received 77 per cent of a US$100 million contract despite completing less than half of the work, further claiming that servers hosting patient data were located in India.
Lightwave E-Healthcare has, however, denied these allegations, insisting that it is owed eight months of post-contract service payments.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with Kojo Yankson on JoyFM’s Super Morning Show, Mr Agyei stated that Mr Akandoh had been part of a parliamentary oversight delegation that monitored the second phase of Lightwave’s contract.
“Yes, he (Mintah Akandoh) was aware of the contract. I have met him a couple of times. I have done it twice, and in all, I met the honourable minister when he was a ranking member. He was aware,” Mr Agyei said.
He added that the minister never raised any concerns at the time.
“I would be surprised if he would stand anywhere or anybody would say he is not aware,” he remarked.
Mr Agyei further recalled an instance where the minister questioned the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) for attempting to duplicate a task already handled by Lightwave.
“There was one time the NHIA was going to do some activity that Lightwave was already doing, and I remember he raised concerns that if the Lightwave system is doing this, why is the NHIA going to do the same thing? Even that statement alone tells you he knew about the contract and the work being done,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Health Minister has announced the introduction of a new platform, the Ghana Health Information Management System (GHIMS), a government-controlled digital system that will manage patient records, insurance verification, billing, and continuity of care across all public and mission health facilities.
GHIMS will serve as the sole authorised platform for patient registration, clinical documentation, billing, and NHIA claims submission. Health facilities have been directed to grant full access to deployment teams for the activation of the system.
The nationwide implementation of GHIMS is expected to begin in November 2025, marking a major step toward reducing private control over national health data and strengthening transparency and security within Ghana’s healthcare information systems.