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Minister for Government Communications, Felix Kwakye Ofosu has disclosed that former Minister for Health Kwaku Agyemang-Manu will face criminal charges in the coming weeks over the controversial procurement of Sputnik V vaccines and related dealings with Frontiers Healthcare Service, in what is expected to be one of the most significant accountability cases linked to COVID-19 spending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to him, preparations for the prosecution are already at an advanced stage as authorities move to pursue legal action over decisions taken during the country\u2019s pandemic response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe former Health Minister Kwaku Agyemang Manu will be charged in the coming weeks over the Sputnik V vaccine purchase and Frontiers Healthcare Services,\u201d Kwakye Ofosu stated, on TV3 on Saturday, March 14. indicating that prosecutors are currently preparing formal charges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The controversy dates back to 2021, when Ghana sought additional vaccine supplies during the global scramble for COVID-19 immunisations. Although the country had begun administering vaccines obtained through the COVAX facility and bilateral agreements, government officials pursued further doses to speed up the national vaccination campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As part of that effort, the then Health Minister Agyemang-Manu entered into an agreement involving a United Arab Emirates intermediary, Ahmed Dalmook Al Maktoum, together with a Ghanaian firm, S.L. Global, to supply millions of doses of the Russian-developed vaccine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The deal soon triggered widespread criticism after it emerged that Ghana had agreed to purchase the vaccines through the intermediary at about $19 per dose, almost double the estimated $10 price at which the manufacturer was reportedly offering the vaccines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An ad hoc committee of the Parliament of Ghana later determined that the agreements had been executed without the necessary parliamentary approval and without authorisation from the Public Procurement Authority (Ghana).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The committee further revealed that approximately $2.85 million, equivalent to more than GH\u00a216 million, had already been paid as part of the transaction even though the vaccines were never delivered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the face of mounting public pressure and parliamentary scrutiny, the government cancelled the deal in July 2021, bringing an end to the disputed procurement arrangement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Separate concerns were also raised about the government\u2019s contract with Frontiers Healthcare Services to conduct mandatory COVID-19 testing for arriving passengers at the Kotoka International Airport. Investigations indicated that while Ghana earned about $6.4 million from the arrangement, the private operator received roughly $80.6 million from the testing services.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Minister for Government Communications, Felix Kwakye Ofosu has disclosed that former Minister for Health Kwaku Agyemang-Manu will face criminal charges in the coming weeks over the controversial procurement of Sputnik V vaccines and related dealings with Frontiers Healthcare Service, in what is expected to be one of the most significant accountability cases linked to COVID-19 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":32219,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[64,43,1],"tags":[12990,5754,5569,11967,10387,9784,9194,7593,5222,5200,6732,1461,192,4521,2264,12634,10954,5205,4814,7726,12665,9683,5485,1198,11030,12103,11167,389,5217,12989,5223,6662],"class_list":["post-48937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-fitness","category-local-news","category-news","tag-agyemang-manu","tag-airport","tag-arab","tag-bilateral","tag-campaign","tag-charged","tag-charges","tag-controversy","tag-covid","tag-covid-19","tag-emirates","tag-felix-kwakye-ofosu","tag-ghana","tag-ghanaian","tag-government","tag-health","tag-international","tag-july","tag-kotoka-international-airport","tag-kwaku-agyemang-manu","tag-kwakye-ofosu","tag-millions","tag-pandemic","tag-parliament","tag-parliament-of-ghana","tag-price","tag-prosecution","tag-public-procurement-authority","tag-russian","tag-sputnik-v","tag-vaccination","tag-vaccine"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48937"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48937\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48938,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48937\/revisions\/48938"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}