Health Minister, Kwaku Agyeman-Manu has said he has always acted in ways that protect the public purse in his public life.
Mr Agyeman-Manu was heavily criticized by some Ghanaians following the botched Sputnik V contract, with some calling on him to resign or be fired by the President.
For instance, Dr Seidu Alidu, a Political Science Lecturer at the University of Ghana, said he should be punished for the alleged procurement breaches in the Sputnik V contract in order to serve as a deterrent to others,
Dr Alidu said, in spite of the fact that the country was going through a crisis of this nature the right procedure, as well as the rules and regulations, should have been followed by the Minister of Health in procuring of the vaccines.
He said on the Key Points hosted by Dzifa Bampoh on TV3 on Saturday, August 7 that “We don’t live in a jungle, we live in a democracy and democracy prescribes institutions and procedures for doing everything.
“There are institutions, there are set laws, there are regulations governing how things should be done in this manner and the processes under which it should be done. Even though we are facing an unprecedented health crisis, when the president wanted to fight this, he had to go to parliament and seek permission.
“With restrictions of movement, the president could have said that we are facing a crisis so we shouldn’t come out but he thought that we are in a democracy and he needs to use the right procedure to fight the crisis. I think the minister should not have lost sight of the fact that regardless of the circumstances we are still in a democracy and the appropriate rules and procedures must be applied.
“This is not first time minister, he is a very experienced minister and he has even been a chairman of the PAC when issues of this kind came he presided over them.
“I don’t think we should just stop at retrieving the money. Something has to be done so that people just don’t think you can do things and be asked to retrieve the money. We need to set a very serious precedent and make the breaches of the law more costly.”
But a statement issued by the Minister who is also Lawmaker for Dormaa Central said “In all my public life as Deputy Minister, Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee and now as Minister, I have been guided by the mandate to protect the public purse at all times and as Minister of Health to also safeguard Ghanaian lives especially during this pandemic.”
By Laud Nartey|3news.com|Ghana
