$100 million allocated for coronavirus fight exhausted – Health Minister-designate

The Minister of Health-designate, Kwaku Agyeman-Manu has disclosed that some $100 million allocated for the fight against COVID-19 has been exhausted.

He made this disclosure when he appeared before Parliament’s Appointments Committee on Wednesday, February 10, 2021.

Mr. Agyeman-Manu, however, disclosed that some $120 million loan facility from the World Bank is about maturing for use by the Health Ministry to boost the COVID-19 fight in Ghana.

“The Ministry of Health initially got $100 million allocation to spend on COVID-19. That amount has been exhausted, and we have got another money that is just about to mature for the Ministry to utilize which is about $120 million from the World Bank, and it is a loan,” he said.

But touching on new measures that will be put in place to ensure that government is able to control the current surge, the former Health Minister who has been re-nominated by President Akufo-Addo said, the strategies used over the last months have worked for the country, hence will be maintained.

“We have battled Covid for nearly 11 months. The strategies we have used have worked for us in Ghana. If you look at our deaths or even our infection rate at the point where we slowed down transmission to this level, we must be thankful and grateful to God and our President for leading the battle.

“We are not going to change soo much. The only new things we are going to do are the new things that have come up on the globe like the vaccination.

“But apart from that, we are beefing up our risk communication again and we have started to ensure that Ghanaians adhere strictly to the Covid protocols. That is the only solution,” the Dormaa Central MP, stressed.