• While there, Health minister, Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, said that he took the decision while 'not thinking properly'
• Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa says that excuse is atrocious
Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, the Member of Parliament for North Tongu, has expressed great worry over the statements of the Minister of Health, Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, on "not thinking properly."
The minister was before a Parliamentary Committee to look into the matter of Ghana procuring some Russian-made Sputnik V coronavirus vaccines at a unit cost of $19 when he stated, among other things, that he wasn't in the right thinking mind when he made the decision.
Kwaku Agyemang-Manu admitted that he did not do due diligence before contacting the 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.
A Norwegian journalist, Markus Tobiassen, uncovered the deal, indicating how the prices of the vaccines had been inflated, citing the factory price of the vaccine as $10.
What ensued in Ghana after the exposé was a controversy, including demands by the minority for the deal to be investigated, following which a parliamentary committee was subsequently set up to probe the deal.
“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 Monday, July 19, explaining that exigencies of the coronavirus impaired his ability to do things as he ordinarily would.
Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa reacting to the Minister, said the reponse is "not the kind of output anyone expects from a Health Minister during a pandemic."
He expressed great worry, stating that such situations push for people to take advantage to perpetuate dubious activities.
"As our Ministers publicly profess not to be thinking properly, dubious middlemen & shonky sheikhs continue to exploit and fleece us," he tweeted.
Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, the Member of Parliament for North Tongu