Former Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu has not taken lightly the posture of finance minister, Ken Ofori-Atta with regards to the Sputnik V Vaccine brouhaha.
Describing the minister as a de facto co-president he slammed Mr Ofori Atta’s posture on the report of the investigative parliamentary committee that uncovered wrong doing by the Heath Minister in the transaction.
“Even before Parliament could receive and deliberate on the adhoc bipartisan committee’s report the de facto co-President who is also Minister of Finance of Ghana announced, what from my experience constituted the Government’s de jure position on the matter, suspected criminality notwithstanding.
“The Minister of Finance called on We the People, whom the Government conceives as rabble, in an interview on Wednesday, 4th August 2021 on Asaase Radio, his family’s radio station, to empathize with the Minister of Health for contravening the Public Procurement Act and Article 181(5) of the 1992 Constitution in the unlawful contract executed for the procurement of the Sputnik V Covid 19 vaccines.
“But it is this same de facto co-President and Minister of Finance who takes responsibility for the order for the payment upon the unconstitutional and illegal Sputnik V Covid-19 procurement contract for this international business or economic transaction without Parliamentary approval. Paradoxically, this was the same co-President and Minister of Finance who had himself gotten away with the aborted parliamentary approved Agyapa Transaction upon the exercise of executive veto by his co and de jure President that resulted in the resignation of the Special Prosecutor in November 2020.
In an earlier interview the de facto co-President and Minister of Finance gave to a Norwegian journalist in June 2021 his language in response to the interrogatories from the Norwegian journalist was couched in terms of “the royal we” – meaning he was speaking on behalf of the Akufo-Addo Government. Part of that interview is republished in audio on JoyNews and AdomNews under the heading – “Sputnik contract: Norwegian investigative journalist’s interview with Ken Ofori-Atta.” The reader may wish to affirm the facts and the authoritative pronouncements made by the co-President and Minister of Finance on behalf of the Ministry of Health, the Minister of Finance, and the Government as a collective. Any rational and patriotic Ghanaian who did not, therefore, reasonably foresee the President’s position on this matter after the pronouncements of the co-President and Minister of Finance at the two interviews has not analytically followed the policy and decision-making history of this Government.”
GhanaFeed.com