Government used WB, IMF’s US$2 billion COVID cash 'to share rice and chicken – Busumbru

The 2020 flag bearer of the People’s Action Party, Mr Kwesi Busumbru, has accused the Akufo-Addo government of wasting the funds advanced to Ghana to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, on cooked rice and chicken.

Mr Busumbru told Nana Yaw Adwenpa and Afia Papabi on CTV’s freshly re-packaged morning show Dwabre Mu on Monday, 16 August 2021 that the funds from the Bretton Woods institutions could have been out to better use by procuring enough of the COVID-19 vaccines when they were available in abundance.

Mr Busumbru raised the concern while discussing the raging controversy surrounding the botched procurement of some 300,000 does of the Sputnik V vaccine.

Mr Kweku Agyeman-Manu, the health minister, had intended procuring some 300,000 doses of the Sputnik V vaccines through a middleman, Sheikh Al Maktoum.

An initial sum of $2,470,000 was paid to the Dubai-based businessman but the deal was cancelled after he supplied 20,000 doses of the vaccine.

It followed reports by the Norwegian press that Ghana had agreed to pay $19 per dose instead of $10.

Mr Agyeman-Manu then wrote to the Sheikh for a refund, which the Sheikh has acceded to.

An ad hoc committee that investigated the matter said in its report that it found that the Ministry of Health did not comply with the requirements of Article 181(5) of the Constitution in respect of its agreement with Dubai-based Sheikh Ahmed Dalmook Al Maktoum, the middleman from whom the government of Ghana tried procuring 300,000 doses of the Sputnik V vaccine.”

The minority, some civil society organisations and some Ghanaians, have called on the minister to resign or be sacked from office.

Speaking on the matter, Mr Busumbru asked: “Why do you use a middleman for the Sputnik V vaccine?”

“You sidelined all the embassies here to use a middleman?” he wondered.

In his view, “they used a middleman for their personal gains”.

According to him, the “World Bank gave us $1bn and the IMF also gave us $1bn in fighting the pandemic but we used the money to cook rice and chicken to share”.

He said if the president cared for the citizens, he would have used $1bn of the accrued sum from the Bretton Woods institutes “to buy enough doses of the vaccines, but so far, it is just almost 1.2 million people that have been vaccinated in Ghana”.

“If the Sputnik V scandal had happened in any country worth its gold, the health and finance ministers would have been sacked and even the president would have resigned because, as the president, you are the CEO of the country and the onus lies on you to check every fine print before signing them”, he told Nana Yaw Adwenpa and Afia Papabi.

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