The Minister of Health, Kwaku Agyemang-Manu has told parliament that the government has paid $6.4 million to the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) for the supply of three key childhood vaccines that are in short supply in Ghana.
The Minister who disclosed this on Thursday, March 9, 2023, was responding to questions about why the country was experiencing the shortage.
He was however unable to state the exact date that the vaccines would arrive saying it would be between two to three weeks.
Answering a question asked by the Member of Parliament for the Okaikoi North constituency, Theresa Awuni on how much paid for the vaccines, the Minister stated that “we have made payments of about $6.4 million of the Cedi equivalent to UNICEF who supplies us the vaccines.”
According to him, a large chunk of the funds for the vaccines was disbursed by the National Health Insurance Authority in tranches.
“I have a template on how these monies were released; the NHIA transferred GH¢25 million in June 2022. We also had another GH¢10.5 million in October, we had GH¢13.1 in November and the last tranche was around GH¢23 million in December. All of these totalled GH¢71.8 million, and we budgeted this amount on the basis of GH¢6 to the dollar, but we are all aware that the Cedi was not trading at that amount, so we had shortfalls in the dollar equivalence and that is what caused the delays.”
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana
