Health Minister granted two-week leave to attend to ‘personal issues’

The Minister of Health, Kwaku Agyeman-Manu is currently on a two-week leave to enable him attend to some personal issues.

MASEM NEWS understands that the request was granted by the Chief of Staff, Akosua Frema Osei-Opare.

He officially began the leave last week.

Earlier reports suggested that the Minister had resigned from his position, but this claim has been debunked by persons close to Agyeman-Manu.

The Health Minister has come under intense criticism for breaching procurement processes while trying to secure Sputnik V vaccines for Ghana.

He signed the agreement without parliamentary or cabinet approvals. He also did not seek approval from the Public Procurement Authority (PPA).

The Attorney General is on record to have advised against the deal.

The Minority in Parliament last week called on President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to immediately dismiss the Minister of Health saying he is not fit to be in office.

They argue that he violated the 1992 constitution and his oath of office by trying to procure vaccines through middlemen without recourse to Parliament or cabinet.

“It is beyond any reasonable doubt the minister betrayed his oath of office and for that matter, and he also failed to uphold the constitution and the laws of our country.”

“I must say that the Minister should be sanctioned. He must be removed by the president. He is not fit to occupy the office of a minister of state and must therefore be removed from office henceforth, failing which this House must pass a vote of censure on the minister,” said minority chief whip, Muntaka Mubarak.

They also took the minister on over his claim that no payment was made in the deal, when the committee’s finding pointed to the fact that money was actually paid.

Meanwhile, the intermediary businessman, Sheikh Al Maktoum who Ghana was procuring the vaccine from has agreed to refund $2.4 million of the $2.8 million paid to him as he only supplied 20,000 doses of the expected 300,000 before the contract was terminated.