Minister of Health, Kwaku Agyemang-Manu, has disclosed that funds totaling $6.4 million had been given to UNICEF for the procurement of three essential infant immunizations.
The Health Minister stated that several crucial shipping and procurement operations are part of the causes for the supply delay when he testified before Parliament on Thursday, March 9, to address concerns about the shortages.
Taking a question on the amount paid for the vaccines from the Member of Parliament for the Okaikoi North constituency, Theresa Awuni, the Minister disclosed that “we have made payments of about $6.4 million of the Cedi equivalent to UNICEF who supplies us the vaccines.”
He further disclosed that a large chunk of the funds for the vaccines was disbursed by the National Health Insurance Authority in tranches.
“I have a template on how these monies were released; the NHIA transferred GH¢25 million in June 2022. We also had another GH¢10.5 million in October, we had GH¢13.1 in November and the last tranche was around GH¢23 million in December. All of these totalled GH¢71.8 million, and we budgeted this amount on the basis of GH¢6 to the dollar, but we are all aware that the Cedi was not trading at that amount, so we had shortfalls in the dollar equivalence and that is what caused the delays.”
Ghana has been hit with acute childhood vaccine shortages since October 2022 which has left thousands of babies across the country unvaccinated.
The Minister failed to give a definite timeline for the supply of the vaccines.