Minister of Health Kwaku Agyemang-Manu has opened up on the controversial Sputnik V vaccine contract with the private office of one Emirati Sheikh, H.H Sheikh Ahmed Dalmook Al Maktoum for 3.4 million doses of Sputnik V at a unit cost of $19.
The Minister has admitted he did not do due diligent at the time of entering into the agreement, saying “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”
After a Norwegian news tabloid, Verdens Gang, reported that Ghana has made a request to purchase 3.4 million doses of the Sputnik V vaccines through two businessmen who are selling it to Ghana at $19 per dose instead of the $10 per dose on the international market, the government explained that it could not secure the vaccines directly from the manufacturer, hence the need to go through some middlemen, and that explains why the cost is higher than the standard price.
It was against this explanation that the minority caucus in Ghana’s Parliament has called for a bipartisan investigation into the deal.
Notwithstanding the earlier denials, appearing before a committee set to probe what has become known as Sputnik V saga on July 19, 2021, Mr. Agyemang-Manu said the exigencies of the Covid-19 impaired his ability to do things as he ordinarily would.
He explained that the deal was reached out of desperation and frustration on the part of his office, the reason he did not seek parliamentary approval for the international transaction as is required under Article 181 (5) of the Constitution of Ghana 1992.
To further justify his actions, the Minister said “February, 78, March 56, there were the numbers and if you, 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”
