Minister of Health Agyeman Manu disclosed to a bi-partisan Parliamentary Probe Committee that the Russian Company contracted by Ghana’s government for supply of some 300,000 doses of overpriced Sputnik V vaccine have terminated the contract.
The Minister, appearing before the Committee in Parliament on 15th July 2021 said the contract was terminated because the Russian company couldn’t supply the country with the vaccine like it promised.
He revealed that the company has already supplied the country with 20,000 of the vaccines.
Mr. Agyeman Manu noted that government will engage the company for payment of the 20,000 doses it has already supplied to the country.
He stressed that the company promised to deliver 300,000 doses within two weeks but failed to do so with the excuse that it was waiting on the manufacturers to supply them, so they can also do same with Ghana.
“We are not just terminating the contract because, after the contract, they told us the first 300,000 doses of the vaccines we ordered would be supplied in two weeks, based on the letters of credit we gave them as part of the terms of the agreement. Our letters of credit were initially delayed, but eventually got to them later. They came back to [tell] us that they had run out of stock and that they were waiting on the manufacturer to supply them, so that they would, in turn, supply us in two weeks,” he told the nine-member Committee.
Background
Ghana has been struggling to get the Covid-19 vaccine for its citizens hence resorting to the use of middle men whose vaccine coast $19 per dose of the Sputnik V vaccine as against the original $10 per dose on the international market.
This didn’t please many Ghanaians especially the minority in Parliament after the news broke out on the outrageous amount involved.
The Minister of Health explained that it is fining it difficult to procure the vaccine that is how come it resorted to the use of middlemen.