The Minister of Health, Kwaku Agyeman Manu has revealed that the Dubai-based Sheikh Ahmed Dalmook Al Maktoum who was acting as a middleman in the procurement of Sputnik V vaccines for Ghana has terminated the contract.
Responding to questions from the Parliament Committee investigating the controversial procurement on Thursday, the Health Minister disclosed that the Sheikh in a letter to the Ministry said his company was struggling to secure the 3.4million doses of the vaccines.
“Faith in them to supply was waning so we continuously started putting pressure on them, they gave us July delivery and it’s like we’ve been pressurising them to give us the vaccines but to no avail. They gave us verbal notice that they will not be able to supply any longer and so requested that they then terminate the agreement which they have finally done. And so as we sit here I believe there’s no contract between the two of us.”
Asked what becomes of the payment we’ve made so far if any, Hon. KwakuAgyeman Manu responded “Honourable Chair to the best of my knowledge we’ve not done any payment as yet.”
The Akufo-Addo led-government came under a barrage of criticism after it emerged that it bypassed the regular processes and worked with middlemen to procure the vaccines.
The Minister of Health, however, justified the decision maintaining that the government was left with no choice but to procure the vaccines to save the lives of the citizenry.
Sheikh Ahmed Dalmook Al Maktoum managed to bring in 20000 doses of Sputnik V vaccines.
