The Minister for Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, has promised to recover the $2.85 million (GHC16,331,640) given to Sheikh Al-Maktoum as part payment to procure Sputnik V vaccines.
In its recommendations, the Alexander Afenyo-Markin-led ad-hoc parliamentary committee set up to investigate the controversial Sputnik V procurement deal charged Ofori-Atta to retrieve all monies paid under the botched contract.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with Asaase Radio‘s Beatrice Adu on The Big Bulletin, Ofori-Atta acknowledged it was his responsibility to retrieve monies used towards procuring the Sputnik V vaccines and guaranteed that his ministry will do so.
“We will always get our money back … I think it’s just so little empathy in appreciating what my colleague minister might have been going through when you have been sworn in with a mandate to protect the health of people …” Ofori-Atta said.
“I’m not sure he had no other choice with the way he acted,” Ofori-Atta said, adding, “Would we get our money back? And we would. It would be my responsibility to get the money back and I would.”
Watch the full interview below:
Pressure mounts on Health Minister
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) caucus in Parliament is also calling on President Akufo-Addo to dismiss the Health Minister, Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, for breaching procurement rules in executing the contract.
“I must say that the minister should be sanctioned,” said the Minority Chief Whip, Alhaji Mohammed Mubarak Muntaka.
He added: “He [the Minister of Health] must be removed by the president. He is not fit to occupy the office of a minister of state and must, therefore, be removed from office henceforth, failing which this House must pass a vote of censure on the minister.”
Elliot Nuertey
Asaase Radio 99.5 – tune in or log on to broadcasts online
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