Vice President of think tank, IMANI Africa, Kofi Bentil, has said the Health Minister, Kwaku Agyeman-Manu is not in jail because it seems he is not subject to the laws of Ghana.
“If the Minister is subject to the laws of Ghana, he will not be home…if you and I took GHS50,000 of government money and treated it this way and broke all the rules, we will not be home,†he said.
Mr Bentil, a lawyer and an anti-corruption campaigner, said on Newsfile on Saturday that the campaign to punish Mr Agyeman-Manu for his controversial handling of the Sputnik V vaccine purchase is not personal.
“It is about nation-building,†he said.
Mr Agyeman-Manu is facing pressure from anti-corruption Civil Society Organisations and a section of the general public to resign or be dismissed for breaching a host of procurement laws.
He is accused of signing an agreement to buy the Russian-produced vaccine at almost twice the market price and failing to bring the deal to Parliament, contrary to advise from the Attorney-General.
A bi-partisan parliamentary committee that investigated the deal found, among other things, that the procurement and supply of the Sputnik-V Covid-19 vaccines between the government and the private office of Sheikh Ahmed Dalmook Al Maktoum constituted an international agreement and required Parliamentary approval as required by Article 181(5) of the 1992 Constitution.
But there are persons in government who say once the deal was cancelled the Sheikh has refunded the money for the undelivered vaccines, the Minister should be left off the hook.
Mr Bentil said people have gone to jail for far lesser breaches of the law.
“We have gone through a history to come where we are and to establish the rule of law and constitutional governance. But we have over the past 20 years, slipped into situations worse than what we used to experience.
“If we can’t deal with blatant breaches of law and we clearly are running country where there are two sets of laws – there are ordinary people’s law and there are powerful people’s law. There are people in jail today for doing far less,†Mr Bentil said.
Meanwhile, the Minister has said the $2.47 million that has been refunded is at the disposal of the Health Ministry for the purchase of vaccines against the COVID-19 pandemic.