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Lightwave E-Health Solutions Services has emerged in the recent controversy over access to patients’ medical records in Ghana. According to the Minister of Health, Kwabena Minta Akando, the company is engaging in blackmail aimed at influencing the process of an ongoing review of its contract on an electronic health records system with the state.
Lightwave E-Health Solutions owns Lightwave Health Information Management Systems (LHMIS), which is an electronic health records system used for patient management across hospitals in Ghana.
According to the health ministry, the state signed a contract with Lightwave in 2019 to introduce the LHMIS in the health sector.
Addressing Parliament on Tuesday, October 28, the health minister alleged that Lightwave E-Health Solutions has monopolised the health records of Ghanaians and restricted access to them at the expense of the state. He also suggested that the company’s server, which contains the data, was stored outside the country.
“What this vendor was doing to the state was that, as and when he demands what, he switches the thing off. Mr Speaker, for your information, the server doesn’t even sit in Ghana. It’s far away in India. Yes, far away in India,” he said.
In a Facebook post, in response to Mr Akando’s claims, a Minister of Health during the Akufo-Addo administration, Dr Bernard Okoe-Boye, challenged the claims, insisting that Lightwave is not a foreign company.
“Claim: Lightwave is a foreign company.
Fact: Lightwave e-Healthcare Solutions Ltd is a wholly Ghanaian-owned company, incorporated in 2015.” Dr Okoe-Boye posted.
While Mr Akando did not explicitly state that Lightwave was a foreign company in his public engagement, Dr Okoe-Boye’s insistence that it is a “wholly Ghanaian-owned company” has raised concerns over who the actual owners of the company are.
In this report, Fact-check Ghana presents the facts about the owners of Lightwave E-Health Solutions Services.
The response from the team’s search at the Office of the Registrar of Companies (ORC) revealed that Lightwave E-Health Solutions Services was incorporated in November 24, 2015 and commenced business a day afterwards.
The search also revealed that Sampson Djaba is the beneficiary owner of Lightwave E-Health Solutions Services. Sampson and Vincent Atabuatsi are the listed directors of the company, according to records from ORC. Vincent also doubled as the Secretary of the company.
On the website of Lightwave E-Health Solutions Services, Sampson Djaba is presented as the founder and CEO of the company.
Media and online reports indicate that Sampson Djaba is an information systems professional with years of experience working in Health IT, Telecommunications and Healthcare Insurance. According to the reports, Sampson Djaba was born in Ghana but schooled in the UK. He moved from the UK to the US after he completed his postgraduate degree from the London School of Economics and Political Science. In the US, he is reported to have worked with many international corporations, including AT&T and JP Morgan.
Fact-check Ghana’s checks also showed that Sampson Djaba is the brother of Otiko Afisa Djaba, a former National Women Organiser of the NPP and a former Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection. Their father was Henry Kwadow Djaba, a renowned Ghanaian businessman and politician who was a member of the CPP and later joined the Progress Party under Kofi Abrefa Busia’s (See here, here and here). Fact-check Ghana did not find any verifiable information about Vincent Atabuatsi.
