Health Minister, Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, says he is not perturbed by the Minority’s call for his dismissal from office due to his involvement in the botched Sputnik V vaccine deal.

In an interview with Joy News’ Kwesi Parker-Wilson, the Dormaa Central MP said he is unaware of the Minority’s vote of censure against him.

“Perturbed of what? What is my crime? That is why I said I do not want to talk to any journalist now; I will get too emotional…There was a committee, and the House has adopted the Committee’s report; I want to end there,” he said.

The Minority on Wednesday filed a motion backed by all 137 NDC MPs seeking the removal of the Health Minister from office.

In a Memo to the Speaker, the Minority Chief Whip, Muntaka Mubarak, explained that the Dormaa Central MP’s action contradicts Article 191 of the 1992 Constitution.

The Minority is convinced that the Health Minister is guilty of perjury, among others, when he “misrepresented to the Ad Hoc Committee on Oaths that no payment was made under the agreement to the Private Office of His Highness Shiek Ahmed Dalmook Al Maktoum [the Dubai-based businessman the Ministry of Health contacted for the procurement].”

But the Majority has accused the Minority of acting in bad faith with its call for the dismissal of Kwaku Agyeman-Manu.

Addressing the press in Parliament on Wednesday, Deputy Majority Leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, said his side is surprised by the action of the Minority since the Committee had concluded that both parties unanimously agreed on the deal.

“So we thought that we have dealt with this issue of Sputnik-V, but we are hearing that some attempts are being made to bring a motion of censure against the Health Minister. We will be surprised to see that happening on the Floor of the House because it will amount to serious bad faith.

“That notwithstanding, we wait to see, but we have approved the report at the plenary by consensus just as the Committee at itself arrived at with its findings and recommendations,” he noted.

Meanwhile, in an interview on Adom FM last week, the Health Minister gave a blow-by-blow account of what transpired during the procurement of the Sputnik-V vaccine.

According to him, the country needed vaccines urgently, although the commodity was scarce on the global market.

He further noted that the decision was tough but considering the number of lives being lost, he had to make a decision after consultation with his technical team.

“When the issue of Sputnik-V came up, there was a decision to go in for more vaccines because there was a scarcity of vaccines as many countries had closed their borders.

“What encouraged us to buy those vaccines was that the same vaccine was sold at $38 elsewhere, so considering that, we thought it was cheap,” he explained on Adom FM’s Burning Issues.