Member of Parliament for North Tongu Constituency Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa has expressed disappointment in the output of Ghana’s Health Minister during the height of the coronavirus pandemic.

“This is not the kid of output anyone expects from a Health Minister during a pandemic,” Mr Okudzeto Ablakwa tweeted on Monday, July 19 after Kwaku Agyemang Manu had appeared before a nine-member bi-partisan parliamentary committee probing a deal that led to Ghana buying Sputnik V vaccine through a middleman at exorbitant prices.

The Minister of Health admitted to the committee on Monday, when he appeared before it for the second time, that he had taken a rash decision without parliamentary approval.

He also said he was in a situation that didn’t make him “think properly”.
“Those were not normal times and I was seriously in a situation that didn’t make me think properly, the way you think that now I will actually abreast myself with the situation,” he told the committee on Monday, July 19.

Taking to Twitter later in the day, the North Tongu MP described the excuse given by his colleague MP – for Dormaa Central – as “atrocious”.

With sad emojis, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) MP said the mental situation in which the Minister was allowed “dubious middlemen” and “shonky sheikhs” to “exploit and fleece us” as a country.
The deal has since been cancelled, according to the Health Minister.