President Akufo Addo has assured Ghanaians of the government preparedness of making sure vaccines coronavirus vaccines are produced locally.
Mr Akufo-Addo noted that Ghana and the other developing countries cannot continue to rely on foreign tax payers for support in the event of a pandemic of this nature.
To that end, he said, he is determined to ensure that the country is self-sufficient.
The President was answering a question relating to the progress of the vaccination exercise against the virus, at a special dialogue and also the launch of Ghana’s SDGs country financing roadmap in Accra
He said “Unfortunately, we are the victims of this worldwide shortage of vaccines. The poorer, less advantaged nations are experiencing challenges to access to the vaccines. That is a major challenge for us, the procurement and the issues if logistics involved in it.
“The pandemic has provided us a very important lesson among the many lessons that Covid has revealed to us, the need for self-reliance in future in these areas.
“We cannot continue to be dependent on arms and on charity of foreigners and foreign tax payers for our basic sustenance. We need to be able to put in place structures that will enable us in future not to be caught pant down.
“We have to learn and find the avenue to pruduce our own vaccines and I am . I am particularly keen on providing the assistance to the intuitions of our country to do so.”
Meanwhile, Ghana has been cited in an investigative report in a Norwegian newspaper Vergens Gang for agreeing to procure the Sputnik V vaccines from a businessman at a unit price of $19 instead of $10.
Government through its communicators have mounted a strong defense to what can be described as an international embarrassment saying buying the vaccines through “middlemen” was the best option
