The Minister for Health Kwaku Agyeman-Manu did not show up in Parliament on Tuesday to explain issues surrounding the vaccine shortages in parts of the county.
However, only the National Health Insurance Authority honoured the invitation on Tuesday.
Expressing his disappointment over the failure of the Minister to show up, the Member of Parliament for Asawase who is also a member of the Health Committee Muntaka Mubarak said “The Minister of Health being invited to the Committee of Parliament, he himself being a Member of Parliament having in mind the provisions of the 1992 Constitution and the ranking member following up with even a call a week before the meeting, and the matter in question is the time that elsewhere Parliament would invite the minister within 24-hours and he has to appear because of its urgency.
“Now, you have a minister of health who for me, for lack of a better word, I will say disrespectfully refused to attend to the invitation of the committee.
“It tells you how he is running the Ministry, it is just unfortunate that we have a government where a lot of its actors are behaving as though they are doing the citizens a favor by occupying those offices, instead of them attending to the urgent needs of their ministry.
“Everyone around this table is very much aware of the importance of the expanded programme on immunization, every other thing can wait but not the expanded programme on immunization because the six or so killer diseases, ones you don’t get immunized in a certain period you endanger all of us because this is something the children will miss and you cannot easily correct.”
For the past few months, the Northern Region and other parts of the country have been experiencing vaccine shortages, with no solution readily available.