Ranking Member on Parliament’s Health Committee, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, says government is not committed to its objective to vaccinate at least 20 million Ghanaians against the Covid-19 by the end of the year.

Addressing the media on Thursday, Mr Mintah Akandoh said about 2.5million Ghanaians have been vaccinated as of November and per information available to him, some vaccines are in the process of getting expired. He explained that government is being complacent due to low number of cases recorded.

He further noted that the low rate of persons inoculated against the coronavirus disease is a result of government's decision to wait for donations instead of procuring sufficient vaccines.

"We have been talking about vaccination as a country. Government came out with a plan that by the end of October, we would have vaccinated about 17million people out of the about 30million. In fact, government targeted 20million people to be vaccinated. It is not for nothing government set for itself that target, because if you are vaccinating to achieve herd immunity, you must do it within a particular space of time. As things are going, it is unfortunate we are not recording the herd immunity.

We sat down and we are where we are, because we were waiting for people to come and donate to us vaccines. By the benevolence of some people, we now have vaccines available and we are told that we have vaccinated only 2.5million people out of 20million targeted. My information indicates that some of the vaccines are getting expired. Are we waiting till all these vaccines get expired so that we go and throw them away?" he quizzed.

He, therefore, held the view that "the output of government points to the fact that they are not serious in their attempt to combat Covid-19. We must know that we are not out of the woes of Covid-19 yet. In fact some countries are returning to lockdown."

Mr. Mintah Ankandoh has advised government not to wait until it get caught up in another serious surge. "We must prepare towards any eventuality."

According to him, "the cheapest thing to do at this point in time is for government to expedite action on the deployment and the vaccination process."

The Member of Parliament for Juaboso Constituency has also bemoaned what he calls lack of education on Covid-19 by government.

"We are even not educating the masses about the vaccination. In the initial stages, people had their doubt about the vaccination. It is the responsibility of government to educate and sensitize the people about these vaccines and the Covid-19 in general. It is not the business of government to be complaining.

We don't vote for leaders to come and complain. If you cannot find the vaccines, you have no business being a Minister or a President. It is the responsibility of government to make sure the citizens are vaccinated," he stressed.

Meanwhile, the Ranking Member on Parliament’s Health Committee wants government to account for the several vaccines it has procured and those it received through donation.

Per the 2022 budget presented by Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta according to him, government has taken delivery in excess of 8.4milion doses of Covid-19 vaccines.

Also, he accused government of hiding behind the pandemic to spend huge sums of money.

"We have spent in excess of GH15billion. We don't know where these monies have gone to. Some frontline health workers have not been paid their allowances. Some contracted the virus in the line of duty and they have not gotten their insurance package," he lamented.

In view of this, he has called for a probe into government's expenditure on Covid-19.

Covid-19 statistics

Statistics released by the Ghana Health Service (GHS) on its website reveals that as of November 18, about 842,225 Ghanaians have been fully immunized against the virus.

Active cases currently stand at 699 and 1,209 individuals have succumbed to the virus. New cases recorded as of November 20, are 24.