President John Mahama is chairing a special Cabinet meeting today, May 14, to decide the government’s official position on the Constitutional Review Committee’s recommendations — closing out a process that has been working through the Attorney General’s office for months. Government spokesperson Felix Kwakye Ofosu confirmed the draft position paper is ready; what emerges from Cabinet today will be the formal framing of any constitutional amendments the Mahama administration intends to push.
The CRC is not a commission of inquiry, which means there is no White Paper required at the end. The government’s instrument is a Position Paper — a softer constitutional document, but the one that will set the terms of public debate about which 1992 Constitution provisions get rewritten, and when. The signals from the Mahama camp have been deliberate and quiet for months. After today, the political weather changes.
In Accra yesterday, Mahama commissioned the PET-CT (Positron Emission Tomography and Computed Tomography) hybrid imaging facility at the Sweden Ghana Medical Centre — West Africa’s first, and the 80th IBA cyclotron globally. The facility is owned by the Ghana National Association of Teachers, which Mahama acknowledged in his remarks: a teachers’ union investing its members’ contributions in nuclear medicine infrastructure is not the standard model anywhere on the continent. Mahama announced the centre will be registered under the Ghana Medical Trust Fund (MahamaCares), with cancer patients accessing treatment without cost. “I envision people coming from Nigeria and other countries to Ghana for specialist services,” the President said — a hub-economy framing that is increasingly the through-line of West African health diplomacy.
The harder story of the day is the one happening 7,000 kilometres south.
Mahama has approved the immediate evacuation of 300 Ghanaians from South Africa following the renewed xenophobic attacks in KwaZulu-Natal and surrounding areas. Foreign Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa announced the operation on Tuesday. These are Ghanaians who already registered with the High Commission in Pretoria after earlier ministry advisories, and Ablakwa indicated more could follow. Ghana’s High Commissioner to South Africa, Benjamin Anani Quashie, has also condemned the 21-day eviction ultimatum issued against undocumented immigrants in Eastcourt, KZN, and announced imminent court action to challenge it. Ramaphosa’s “no place for xenophobia” letter, released this week, has not slowed the diplomatic momentum on this — it has, if anything, hardened it.
Three stories, one frame: Ghana is doing the work that small middle-income countries have to do simultaneously now — fixing the constitution at home, building specialist infrastructure that lets the country export capability rather than only import it, and protecting its diaspora when the host country no longer reliably will.
Also today: STARR-J, a $300 million World Bank facility for upgrading 50 Senior High Schools and ending the double-track system by 2027, was announced at the PET-CT commissioning. NIA workers began a strike on May 13. Over 500,000 students began the 2026 WASSCE.
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