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Many Ghanaians are expectant of a swift but comprehensive investigation and a successful prosecution of the twelve people said to have hired an arsonist to burn down the Central Medical Stores (CMS) in Tema but that expectation may remain a mirage for some time.

The international community especially United States of America and the United Kingdom are also keenly following developments as they have both sunk huge sums of money into the supply of critical medication to the CMS.
The uninsured CMS which contained every conceivable drug imported into the country including drugs for deadly diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and Ebola was estimated to be over GHS263million.

The current Attorney-General and Minister of Justice  Madam Gloria Akuffo is racking her brains to unlock the possible route to embark on a successful prosecution of the twelve persons, but, it is becoming a daunting task as there seem to be no watertight evidence to them to the gallows, a source at the Ministry told the ABC News.

“The Minister is bent on closing this case but look, it is hard to come by evidence now after two years of the arson. It is a pity but do not be surprised if they are never sent to Court. The evidence now is scanty”, the source disclosed.

The former Attorney General, Mrs. Marietta Brew Appia-Oppong also faced similar challenges of lack of enough evidence for prosecution. Indeed Alex Segbefia, former Minister of Health recently told a section of the media that when the information of the arson first got to the attention of the former Attorney-General, she did not have enough information to prosecute. "We only have citings of the reports and not the statements by those involved, so as far as I am concerned the CID or National Security based on the evidence they have should produce enough to give it to the Attorney General to mount a prosecution," he said.

On January 13, 2015, the CMS was consumed by fire, resulting in the destruction of medical supplies and equipment.  At a press conference in Accra on January 29, 2016 the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Mrs Marietta Brew Appiah-Opong, said the arsonist was believed to have been paid to set the fire in order to destroy the evidence for an investigation that was to be conducted by the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) into suspected corruption at the CMS.

ABC New is yet to read any report by the EOCO into the suspected corruption at the CMS.
Mrs Appiah-Oppong said Dogbe was at large and was being sought after by the national security agencies adding that  “the government has directed the Police  Criminal Investigations Department (CID) to declare Dogbe a wanted person and to take the necessary steps, including seeking the assistance of Interpol, to effect his arrest”

She named the interdicted officials as the head of the CMS, Mr Peter Ekow Gyimah; a member of the Interim Management Committee of the CMS, Alhaji Yusif Inua; the Acting head of the CMS, Mr Iddrisu Abdul-Karim; the Principal Pharmacist/Warehouse Manager, Ms Gifty Esi Mankartha, and a warehouse Manager, Zeboat Doh.

The others were the Line Warehouse Manager/General Pharmaceuticals Unit, Mr Ibrahim Laryea Amartey; another Warehouse Manager, Mr Kwame Foli; a Warehouse Manager in charge of General Pharmaceuticals, Mr Mathias Senaya, and  Abdul Karim, whose designation was not stated.

The rest are the Senior Supply Officer of Project Stores, Victoria Anning; the Pharmacist/Systems Analyst, Mr James Benjamin Annan, and a storekeeper, Mr Peter Atiaba Addah.

She said the findings of the investigations identified the officials as being part of a network responsible for the systemic theft of large quantities of medical supplies and irregularities in the procurement and allocations to health institutions.

 According to the report, a copy of which is in possession of this paper, a stock count of all the medical consumable was scheduled for January 13, 2015, the same day the outbreak occurred, to be used for an exhaustive audit of supplies made to the CMS and allocations to health institutions in 2014. The stock count was necessitated after suspicions that some officers were diverting some of the drugs.

The report revealed that fifty boxes of assorted anti-malarial drugs were hoared by two officers of the CMS who claimed that the CMS had completely ran out of those drugs.

Again, expired drugs, mostly anti-malarial  medicines from a private pharmacy shop were sometimes swapped for good drugs supplied to the CMS by the company.

The report recommended that an audit should be conducted into a transaction between Volta Impex and the Ministry of Health following information gathered concerning an amount of GH¢5 million paid to the company for the supply of two million prescription forms to the National Health Insurance Scheme in 2011 when the actual cost of the supply was established to be GH¢1 million.It said it was further gathered that even though Volta Impex supplied the 100,000 copies of the prescription forms, which was kept at the CMS, the GHS and medical doctors in state-run hospitals and clinics refused to use them with the excuse that the forms were deficient.

Interestingly, all the forms were destroyed in the fire and it was later detected that the procurement unit of the MOH shielded the wrongdoing.

It would be recalled that the outgoing US Ambassador, Robert Johnson chastised the government for failing to act decisively to bring closure to the fire incident, a situation he said, “has dealt a blow to our ability to support public health in Ghana.” Some of the burnt drugs were medical supply worth $7 million donated by the American government.

The outgoing UK High Commissioner to Ghana, Jon Benjamin moments before departing the shores of Ghana also said the UK Parliament was worried over the CMS arson.

According to him, UK pumped about 4 million pounds worth of medicines into Ghana which were destroyed in the fire hence the UK Parliament’s seeming interest in the case.

“In the Central Medical stores, there were 4 million pounds worth of medicines bought by the UK through our DFID programme that were there and were destroyed and we had to account for that money and questions were asked in the UK Parliament. So we had to say what had happened and what was being done about it. So I think that was a legitimate reason for us to raise our concerns,” added Jon Benjamin.