The Minority in Patliament has alleged that the middlemen involved in the Sputnik-V vaccines contract are nothing short of imposters.

Addressing a press conference on the overpriced Sputnik V vaccines in Parliament Thursday,  June 24, 2021, the Minority Leader, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, said there the Minority had established that the middlemen government was dealing with had no authorization on behalf of  Russian Direct Investment Fund(RDIF) or Russian authorities to hold themselves out as agents.

“At best, they are imposters. The NDC caucus can also confirm that these middlemen made no efforts to engage the Russian Embassy when they arrived in Accra. Our government did not also contact them for any due diligence neither were Russian Embassy officials invited into the meetings with these shadowy characters.

“It is worth pointing out that contrary to the claims contained in the official press release of the Ministry of Health dated June 9, 2021, there is no Deputy Russian Ambassador in Ghana,” he said.

He added, “We the minority believe that this contract is not in the interest of Ghanaians and whether payments have been made or not, the contract is null and void and government must as a matter of urgency put in the necessary steps to abrogate the contract.”

According to Mr Iddrisu, there still existed other channels such as the WHO, UNICEF, GAVI, COVAX that could assist Ghana to obtain standard and safe vaccines set at a price far lower than the US$19 per dose rip-off.

The Minority said the RDIF had opened direct engagements with over 30 governments as of February 2021 including African countries such as Kenya, Rwanda, Tunisia, Guinea and Algeria.

“We have a copy of a statement RDIF issued in Moscow confirming this fact,” it said.

The Minority Leader said the government’s attitude now pointed to one of opportunism in exploiting the pandemic to aggregate wealth to family and friends.

“This is naked and blatant opportunism that had led to a situation where we risk our longstanding mutual relations with our diplomatic partners so as to facilitate unconscionable profiteering,” he said.

He questioned why the government had rather, in a bizarre twist, preferred to deal with dubious middlemen of questionable character in its insatiable thirst to profit from vaccine acquisition as revealed by the Norwegian newspaper, Verdens Gang (VG).

Mr Iddrisu argued that the justification by the Minister of Health, Mr Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, was unconvincing to the Ghanaian populace because the decision to purchase vaccines from an intermediary did not guarantee the safety and potency of those vaccines for the people of Ghana.

“Indeed, WHO has warned all countries including Ghana to desist from the purchase of vaccines using intermediaries because it has the tendency of resulting in sub-standard vaccines that can be harmful to our compatriots.

He said it was totally unacceptable for President Nana Akufo-Addo, who has served as Foreign Affairs Minister before, to boldly choose to sidestep diplomatic channels and rather resort to dealing with Russian Institutions through third parties “when we have always had and maintained cordial bilateral relations with the Russian Government.”

He further pointed out that the Foreign Ministry, led by Ms Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, had let the country down.

According to him, the abysmal failure in leveraging historic diplomatic ties with the Russians at a time “we in the Minority have unfettered access to the Russians is most embarrassing.”

“She ought to be fired if she cannot meet the basic expectations of her office. We are more incensed by the terms of these multiple illegal agreements which cruelly short-changed Ghanaians by our government agreeing to pay $19 to $26per jab of Sputnik-V instead of the under $10 other countries and multilateral agencies like the AU purchased the very same vaccine.

“We also intend to explore further avenues under our Constitution and Standing Orders to hold the Health Minister accountable for this graft of international proportions,” he said.

Touching on Frontiers Healthcare Services operations at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA), Mr Iddrisu said the decision to choose the private company at the neglect of reputable public institutions such as Memorial Institute for Medical Research allowed the entity to rake in a colossal $16.3m dollars for charging travellers US$150 for the less sensitive and inferior antigen test.

“Sadly, KIA was handed a paltry $1million. Do note that these fantastic profits for Frontiers are just for the period September to December 2020. January to June this year has not yet been accounted,” he said.