Presidential advisors and staffers at the Office of the President have presented a total of GH¢6.1 million in salary donations to the Ghana Medical Trust Fund, also known as MahamaCares, in a ceremony at Jubilee House yesterday.
The donation comprises the six-month salary pledge of President John Dramani Mahama, one-month salaries of presidential appointees and staffers, as well as deductions from some officials who failed to meet the asset declaration deadline.
The funds are earmarked to support treatment for Ghanaians suffering from non-communicable diseases (NCDs), including cancers, cardiovascular diseases, chronic kidney failure requiring dialysis, stroke, diabetes, hypertension and sickle cell disease.
Addressing healthcare gap
The Deputy Chief of Staff in charge of Administration and Finance, Nana Oye Bampoe Addo, said the gesture was a direct response to the plight of hundreds of thousands of Ghanaian families struggling to afford critical health care.
“According to the World Health Organisation, non-communicable diseases now account for 45 per cent of all deaths in Ghana,” she told the gathering, which included the Administrator of the Ghana Medical Trust Fund, Adjoa Obuobia Darko-Opoku.
“In the first half of 2025 alone, one facility recorded five thousand new diabetes referrals.
These are not statistics.
They are our people. And they are why we are here today.”
She painted a graphic picture of the suffering of ordinary Ghanaians, including a woman battling kidney failure whose family cannot afford weekly dialysis, and a 32-year-old firstborn diagnosed with cancer whose relatives had sold land and emptied savings for chemotherapy.
President led by example
Ms Bampoe Addo recalled that on April 29, 2025, President Mahama launched the Ghana Medical Trust Fund — MahamaCares — to cover treatment costs for NCDs not fully provided for under the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).
The Fund requires approximately three billion Ghana cedis annually over its initial three years.
“What moved all of us most deeply is what the President did next; he did not just launch a fund and leave the room, he pledged six months of his own salary as seed funding.
He then turned to us, his appointees, and invited us — in the spirit of the Reset Agenda, in the spirit of leadership as sacrifice — to contribute our one-month salaries.”
She noted that the Controller and Accountant-General had already transferred the GH¢6.1 million to the Ghana Medical Trust Fund.
Real sacrifices made
The Deputy Chief of Staff acknowledged that the salary donations came with personal sacrifices.
“Bills that had to wait. Plans that had to be deferred. Commitments that had to be renegotiated.
We knew the cost, and we paid it anyway,” she said.
She added that, “This is what the Reset Agenda means.
It means that leadership is not a title; it is a disposition.
It is the willingness to put your hand in your pocket when the country needs you.”
She explained that every cedi presented would go towards putting a smile on the face of a patient who had been waiting for help, funding chemotherapy, dialysis sessions, and buying precious time for families who had run out of options.
“You have done something that will outlast this ceremony; you have contributed to the possibility of a Ghana where no one dies simply because they could not afford to live,” Ms Bampoe Addo told the staffers.:
