The Vice-Chairman of the ad hoc Parliamentary Committee that probed the Sputnik V vaccine deal, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh has said that the Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta needs to appear before the Committee to answer pertinent questions.

“For me, the Finance Minister has a lot of questions to answer because, how many of such payments has he done that we are not aware of,” he said on JoyNews’ AM Show, Monday.

Mr Kwabena Akandoh's comment comes after the Committee recommended that the Finance Ministry retrieves an amount GH¢16,331,640 paid to Sheikh Al Maktoum and the Health Ministry's indication that Kwaku Agyeman-Manu was unaware of the payment.

Mr Akandoh said the payment of the amount was abnormal.

“Everything about the payment of GH¢16,331,640 was abnormal [because] it takes the Ministry of Health to request for the issue of the LC (Letters of Credit), [so as the Health Minister] you cannot tell me that you are not aware when some monies have been paid,” he said .

The Committee Vice-Chairman said Ken Ofori-Atta is expected to protect the public purse, hence, “the most treacherous person” to our public purse is the Minister responsible for Finance.

“And I say so because as Minister responsible for Finance, you don’t just get up if anybody comes and say I have contracted this person so go and pay, then you also go and pay,” Mr Akandoh stressed.

“It is on record that this contract didn’t go through the Cabinet, this contract didn’t come to Parliament, this contract didn’t go through the appropriate procurement procedure, so upon what basis did the Minister responsible for finance pay this money,” he quizzed.

Mr Akandoh stressed that since the necessary procedures that must be followed before payment are made, were not followed, “everything about the payment was bizarre, to say the least.”