Health Minister, Kwaku Agyeman-Manu
• Kwaku Agyeman-Manu has written to Sheikh Al Maktoum to refund the amount government deposited in his account
• Al Maktoum is said to have terminated the Sputnik V vaccines contract
• Already, there is pressure on the minister to resign for breaching procurement protocols
Health Minister, Kwaku Agyeman-Manu has requested a refund from the middleman who was tasked to help the government secure some Sputnik V vaccines.
In a letter sighted by GhanaWeb, he said the request is in line with Clause 8.2 of the agreement signed.
Per the agreement, any termination of the contract which shall be by notice of writing to the other party shall not affect any rights, remedies, obligations or liabilities of the parties that have accrued up to the date of termination.
Part of the health minister’s letter to Sheikh Al Maktoum said, “I wish to formally accept your termination of our agreement dated March 9, 2021 for the supply of Sputnik V vaccine as per your letter No. ADM/LT/GHA/00/21/101 dated July 14, 2021. By this letter, I also wish to formally request for the refund of the remaining amount for the non-supplied doses, which should be the total amount paid to your office, minus the amount due for the 20,000 doses you already supplied, in line with your earlier email dated July 25, 2021 in which it was affirmed that the April 13, 2021 funds were transferred into your accounts as fifty percent advance for the initial batch of 300,000 doses.”
The health minister had earlier denied knowledge of the payment made to the intermediaries the ministry dealt with.
He explained to the committee probing the procurement of Sputnik V vaccine in parliament that, he dealt with the intermediary called Sheikh Al Maktoum to purchase 3.4 million doses of the vaccine, because of the dire situation of the country at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, and that “to the best of my knowledge, we haven’t done any payment.”
But the committee established that the government of Ghana had paid US$2,850,000 of US$5,700,000 in the controversial Sputnik vaccine deal.
Kwaku Agyeman-Manu has in recent times been under intense pressure to resign after making some errors in the procurement process of the Sputnik V vaccines.
The minister failed to secure approval from the board of the Public Procurement Authority (PPA) as required by Sections 40 and 41 of Act 663, before executing the international agreements.
Meanwhile, Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, has been asked by the nine-member bi-partisan ad hoc committee of parliament probing the procurement deal of the controversial Sputnik V vaccine to recover the total amount of US$2,850,000 spent on the procurement of the Russian-made vaccine.
Read the health minister’s letter below.
