Purchasing Sputnik V vaccine: I driven by desperation to bypass Parliament – Agyemang Manu

Minister for Health, Kwaku Agyemang-Manu has said he acted out of desperation in procuring the Sputnik V vaccine to save Ghanaians, hence his failure to follow due process as stipulated by the laws of the country.

He confessed he failed to follow due process before contracting a middleman based in Dubai, one Emirati Sheikh, H.H Sheikh Ahmed Dalmook Al Maktoum for 3.4 million doses of the Sputnik V vaccine at a unit cost of $19.

According to him, the entire contract was agreed out of desperation and frustration on the part of his office, on grounds that he failed to comply with laws which require parliamentary approval for international transaction of such nature per Article 181 (5) of the Constitution of Ghana 1992.

Hon Agyeman-Manu gave the confession when he appeared before the Parliament’s Ad-Hoc Committee probing the deal on Monday, July 19, 2021.

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He admitted to the Chairman of the Committee and Deputy Majority Leader, Alexander Afenyo-Makin that he acted desperately to get the vaccines for Ghanaians following the emergence of the new variants that was fast spreading.

He explained to the Committee that the exigencies of the new variants of Covid-19 frustrated him and compromised his ability to do due diligence by getting parliamentary approval for the 3.4 million doses of Sputnik V vaccines at a unit cost of $19.

Mr Agyeman-Manu said, ordinarily, he would have sought parliament approval to meet Article 181 (5) of the 1992 constitution and therefore admitted having sinned against the law.

“Those were not normal times and I was seriously in a situation that didn’t make me think properly, the way you think that now I will actually abreast myself with the situation,” he told the committee on Monday, July 19.

“February, 78, March 56, there were the numbers and if any of us here were the Health Minister at the time I think you might have taken certain decisions that on hindsight or going forward you may not have done those things. This was the environment that I found myself in. Out of desperation, frustration, so many things and people were dying we needed to protect our citizens,” he told the Committee.

The middleman deal was exposed by a Norwegian journalist, Markus Tobiassen, who works with tabloid Vergens Gan, to have been inflated by some $9 citing the ex-factory price of the vaccine as $10.

Following the Norwegian news publication, the Minority caucus in parliament demanded a bipartisan probe into the matter.

A Motion was subsequently moved by the Minority Leader on the floor of parliament and seconded by the Ranking Member on the Health Committee, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh. The Speaker approved a nine-member ad-hoc committee selected by Leadership of the House to probe the deal.

Source: expressnewsghana.com