Health Minister, Kwaku Agyeman-Manu failed to appear before Parliament after being invited to explain issues concerning alleged shortages of vaccines in some parts of the county.
He was scheduled to come to Parliament today February 28, to explain issues and measures taken to address the situation.
According to an invitation sent by the Clerk of Parliament’s Health Committee read that “I have the direction of the Chairman of the Committee on Health to invite you to an emergency meeting to brief the Committee on the cause of vaccine shortage in Ghana and the measures being put in place to address the situation, on Tuesday, 28th February 2023 at 9:00 a.m. at the Committee Room 1&2, New Administration Block, Parliament House.
“The Committee also requests the presence of the following institutions’ heads and relevant officers: the Ghana Health Service, the National Health Insurance Authority, the Global Fund, the Ministry of Finance, and the Vaccine Control Programme.”
However, the minister who is the Member of Parliament (MP) for Dormaa Central didn’t show up.
This has provoked a section of the parliamentarians in the Minority side.
Furious lawmaker for Asawase who is also a member of the Health Committee, Muntaka Mubarak told Parliament that “The Minister of Health being invited to the Committee of Parliament, he himself being a Member of Parliament having in mind the provisions of the 1992 Constitution and the ranking member following up with even a call a week before the meeting, and the matter in question is the time that elsewhere Parliament would invite the minister within 24-hours and he has to appear because of its urgency.
“Now, you have a minister of health who for me, for lack of a better word, I will say disrespectfully refused to attend to the invitation of the committee.
“It tells you how he is running the Ministry, it is just unfortunate that we have a government where a lot of its actors are behaving as though they are doing the citizens a favour by occupying those offices, instead of them attending to the urgent needs of their ministry.
“Everyone around this table is very much aware of the importance of the expanded programme on immunization, every other thing can wait but not the expanded programme on immunization because the six or so killer diseases, ones you don’t get immunized in a certain period you endanger all of us because this is something the children will miss and you cannot easily correct.”
By Vincent Kubi