Sam George insists Health Minister must go

Ningo Prampram Member of Parliament, Samuel Nartey George has said Health Minister Kwaku Agyeman-Manu must leave office because he has failed.

Throwing lights on health projects being undertaken in his constituency while speaking on the New Day show on TV3 Monday, February 21, he said “I am hoping that it will not end up like the La General Hospital where the sod was cut and two years on nothing. The contractor is on-site, I have seen that they are doing the land clearing. The Health Minister, if he survives the vote of censure or whoever succeeds him, should bear in mind that I am going to be on their neck.”

Asked why the Minority is being hard on the Minister, he said “We are not being too hard, we are just using the law. The health minister says he stopped thinking. If he stops thinking, in his own words he said he is not thinking. There is a reason the brain is in your head, it is to think and so if you are a minister and you are nothing you shouldn’t be the minister. Parliament and governance is not a church, forgiveness is for God.”

All 137 members of the Minority in Parliament have signed a motion for a vote of censure in the Minister of Health who is also the Member of Parliament for Dormaa Central Constituency.

The motion was submitted on Wednesday, February 16 via a memorandum to the Speaker of Parliament.

According to the motion, Mr Agyemang-Manu undertook a business transaction as Ghana’s Minister of Health without prior approval of Parliament contrary to Article 81 of the 1992 Constitution.

He has also been accused of signing a procurement agreement without prior approval from the Board of the Public Procurement Authority (PPA).

The Minority also accuses the Health Minister of dishonesty, telling the Committee of Health that he procured the Sputnik-V vaccines at an ex-factory price of $10 per dose when they were really procured at $19 and $18.5 per dose.

The Health Minister is also accused of fibbing and misrepresenting under oath, having made a $2.85 million initial payment to the private office of Sheikh Ahmed Dalmook Al Maktoum when he told an ad hoc committee that no payment had been made.

The Minority accuses him of perjury.

“The above conduct, being in direct breach of the Constitution and laws passed by this Honourable House, the Minister of Health be removed from office as Minister by a vote of Censure passed in accordance with article 82 of the Constitution.”

When he appeared before the nine-member bi-partisan committee on the procurement of the Sputnik-V vaccines, Mr Agyeman-Manu said he was not himself when he took the decision because the country was in dire straits due to the Covid-19 pandemic.