The Parliamentary Committee probing of the overpriced Sputnik V vaccines deal continued on, Monday July 19, 2021.
Recall that the Minister of Health, Mr. Kwaku Agyemang Manu justified the deal which was government’s decision to acquire the Sputnik COVID-19 vaccines at about two times the price on the international market with claims that it was facing difficulties in acquiring the vaccines directly from the manufacturers.
The minister explained that the current procurement price at hand wasn’t the intention of the government but actually did its best to get the ex-factory price for the vaccines- $10 per dose but ended up procuring the vaccine at $19 per dose for 3.4 million doses.
It came to notice that H.H Sheikh Ahmed Dalmook Al Maktoum whose office interposed to sell the Sputnik V vaccines to Ghana is friends with Umar Farooq Zahoor, a Pakistani who has been wanted by the Norwegian Police for the past 10 years for several crimes committed even though the Pakistani national denies the charges on him. He was the individual in 2015 that signed a deal worth $510 million with the Minister of Power Dr. Kwabena Donkor which landed the Minister in trouble.
It was further was revealed on TV3’s ‘Midday live’ on Thursday, June 10 tha Markus Tobiassen, a journalist in Norway stated that there are suspicions Umar Farooq is the main person behind the deal and that Sheikh Ahmed is just the face of the deal.
There are other reports indicating that Sheikh Ahmed and Umar Farooq were at the Kotoka International Airport to meet officials of the Ministry of health to deliver 15,000 does as the deal demands.
The Minister of health attributed transportation, shipment, insurance, handling and special storage charges as factors that lead to the $19 per dose which according to him was initially $25 but was beaten down to $19. “These are the factors which led us to agree the final price of US$19 per dose,” he said on Wednesday, June 9.
