Mr Kofi Bentil, Vice President of IMANI Africa, has disclosed that the entire arm of government failed in the process leading to the procurement of the Sputnik V vaccines.
According to him, they have equally been unsuccessful in taking actions against Health Minister, Agyeman-Manu, following reports from the ad-hoc committee probing the Sputnik vaccine procurement.
Mr Bentil further explained that institutions including the Health Ministry, Cabinet and the Bank of Ghana were lax in dealing with the situation.
Without mincing words, the IMANI Vice President noted that “we have suffered a catastrophic failure and we need to get to the bottom of it”.
“At least, the Committee has done a job and put out the obvious, and the obvious is that every arm of government failed in this exercise. And for me, that is the most important thing. Even Parliament was lied to and Parliament has not taken any serious action.
“I said before that, maybe the action will follow, but for now, what I think Parliament should be minded to deal with is that if a minister can come before Parliament and under oath tell them something which is untrue and they let that person walk, they have totally undermined their own importance.
“If a minister can do all the things that have been done and the person does not pay any serious price and the laws of this country do not have anything to say about it, then I’m not sure what kind of governance we are running”.
Kofi Bentil
Calls for Parliament to resolve the issue
With simmering calls from the public requesting for the dismissal of the health minister from his position, Mr Bentil maintained that “Parliament is the only institution where we have representatives with the necessary power to get into these matters and find us the answers”.
Following this, he cautioned that things should not spiral out of control, requiring the involvement and intervention of organisations such as the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ).
“We don’t want somebody to go to CHRAJ or some other place. That will only happen if we think Parliament is failing in its oversight.
“So I am watching and I think many people are watching what Parliament will do to try and salvage whatever is left of this system and try and make sure that under their watch, things like this will not happen again. It may be a good lesson for all of us, if there are loopholes, we solve them”.
Kofi Bentil
Ad hoc committee of Sputnik probe
On his part, a member of the Parliamentary Committee investigating the procurement of Sputnik vaccines by government, Mr Bernard Ahiafor, cited reason for the absence of possible sanction against the health minister, following the ad hoc committee’s report.
He explained that such actions are not part of the demands of the committee chaired by Deputy Majority Leader in Parliament, Alexander Afenyo Markin.
“It is an ad-hoc committee and we were given terms of reference. If you look at the terms of reference, we are supposed to make a determination. So we have made a determination and laid the fact bare before the general house. So it is left with Parliament…. We are a fact-finding Committee and we find the fact, we lay it bare before Parliament and it is left with Parliament to take a decision as to the actual sanction to be meted out.
“I believe strongly in ad-hoc committees being a fact-finding committee. It is not incumbent on us to say that this is the kind of punishment that is supposed to be given to the minister. We have done our work and we have brought the fact to Parliament, it is left with the entire house to make a decision”.
Bernard Ahiafor
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