An Anti-graft campaigner, Edem Senanu has hazarded a guess as to why the Health Minister, Kwaku Agyeman-Manu disregarded pre-eminent practice in the deal to procure Sputnik V vaccine for the country.

“I just think that the Minister ignored what was good practice, best practice. I think that for all you know, he may have had some people closer to him who said look, just go ahead etc.”

His comment comes on the back of the revelation by the ad hoc Committee set up by Parliament to probe the procurement of Sputnik vaccines that, the Health Minister paid $2,850,000 of $5,700,000 [50% of the contract sum] to Messrs Al-Maktoum before appearing before them.

But, Mr Agyeman-Manu had denied knowledge of any payment when he testified before the ad hoc Committee.

Speaking on JoyNews’ AM Show on Monday, Edem Senanu noted that, “this is the risk you run when you do things like that because it really doesn’t make sense that the formal opportunities to get advice on this were sought, the advise was provided, and you ignored it.”

He also noted that “with middlemen involved, obviously even if the Minister and his group were not making any money off it, somebody somewhere was making money off it, and those are the points at which one should have been much more cautious.”

Mr Senanu said he is disturbed at the unfortunate reality as he wondered how “so much has gone wrong”.

“I don’t know how we managed to put aside all the procedures that must be followed. The fact that it is an international contract, you must seek Parliamentary approval, the fact that there’s a PPA, all the checks and balances that will allow us to get value for money and ensure that the public purse is not just expended anyhow seem to have been ignored.

“And it is shocking to identify that this is how far wrong, the Ministry went,” he told host, Israel Laryea.

The Health Minister, however, had explained his action was necessitated by the quest to get the vaccines to save lives as he was under some pressure following the rise in cases.

But Edem Senanu begs to differ saying, “on the contrary, it’s in crisis moments that you need to be most sober, most alert that you need to do good consultation, and the evidence suggests that those who were available to give him good advice did so.

“And so now that issue of confusion, given the fact that the Attorney General has spoken, given the fact that PPA had raised certain issues, given the fact that monies were actually transferred, is not looking good at all.”

Meanwhile, there have been calls from a section of the public to have the Health Minister out of office.