President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo receiving the coronavirus jab
The World Bank has assured that it will regularly monitor the progress made by government on the procurement of COVID-19 vaccines for Ghanaians.
According to the Bank, it is keen on monitoring the progress made in order to ensure that there is proper value for money.
So far, the Bank has approved US$435 million for Ghana via the COVID-19 Emergency Preparedness and Response Project which is targeting the acquisition of vaccines from a range of sources to support Ghana’s target to vaccinate 17.7 million people.
Speaking to journalists in Accra, Pierre Laporte, the Country Director of World Bank, assured that: “in terms of pricing, we have an idea of the range of prices, now it is a question for the Ministry of Health to manage properly and adequately and also our procurement team will also look at that and if it is overpriced, we will not approve it.
“We are working closely with COVAX, Africa Union platforms and others and these are platforms that I know the Ministry of Health is also looking at. There are options to go through these platforms or to go directly to the manufacturers. The World Bank is supplying the vaccines through these platforms and we are counting the government to make the right decisions on pricing,” he emphasised.
Commenting on whether the World Bank is likely to support local manufacturing of the vaccines as the Government of Ghana wishes to undertake, Mr. Laporte indicated that: “in this specific project no, but does the World Bank supports local manufacturing of the vaccines?
Absolutely, the branch of the World Bank that deals with the private sector, the IFC they have already indicated their willingness to support the process in whichever country this happens and if Ghana has a good proposition am sure the IFC will support it. But in this project we do not deal with that, we only deal with procurement and distribution of vaccines,” he stressed.