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Alex Segbefia
Officials of the Health Ministry and the Ghana Health Service today [Monday] had a tough time explaining to members of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) circumstances under which over a million Ghana cedis was used to buy condoms to control the spread of HIV-AIDS.
The Committee members did not see why the Ghana Health Service and the Health Ministry paid such a huge amount for what they described as “people’s pleasures.”
“I want to be educated because I wonder why a huge sum of 1, 450,000 will be spent on male condoms as if we are sponsoring people’s pleasures etc. 14 billion old Ghana cedis, why should such an expenditure be part of your budget. “It’s a huge amazement to me.
I want to find out if this expenditure has decreased or increased since 2011.
I am very very curious in coming into terms with it because I don’t understand why the state should pay 14 billion old Ghana cedis to buy condoms,” the Chairman of PAC, Kweku Agyemang said. Officials of the Health Ministry sought to explain that the GHC 1 million was not from the coffers of government but from global fund. But the PAC Chairman was dissatisfied with the explanation, saying “the education from the Ministry was not sufficient.”
“I think your education is not very very adequate. It’s for control of AIDS programme, do you supply to AIDS patient free or they buy?” the Chairman queried.
The Chief Director of the Ministry in response said : “It is free. We give to everybody. It is to prevent people from getting HIV AIDS.”
The same Ministry was in hot waters on Friday when it appeared before PAC to answer questions surrounding the purchase of some vehicles for the Ministry. PAC reprimanded Health Minister, Alex Segbefia for his inability to recoup over GHC 37,000 from the sale of a vehicle belonging to the Ministry.
Source: Citifmonline
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