COVID-19: Madagascar herbal drugs didn’t come with invoice – SGF

 Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja

The Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) and Chairman of PTF on COVID-19, Boss Mustapha, has denied knowledge of Madagascar demanding 170,000 Euros from Federal Government for herbal drugs.

According to him, he took delivery of five cartons of the sealed herbal drugs on Monday evening and there was no invoice inclosed.

Mustapha who spoke at the daily briefing of the task force said: “I think we have said repeatedly hear that we did not ask for the Madagascar consignment, it was given by the government of Madagascar to African countries as their contribution to wanting to find solution to the COVID-19 pandemic and we have repeatedly said our consignment and those of West African countries, was dropped off at Guinea Bissau and that we were making arrangements to go and airlift it.

“As God would have it, the President of Guinea Bissau decided to visit our President last Saturday and when he was coming, he came with our consignment of five cartons and those five cartons were delivered to me yesterday in the evening, sealed, without a bottle out of it.

“I’m going to engage the Minister of Health who has the responsibility of validation, through his institutions that are chartered by law to do that. The President was upfront with that even when he took delivery of it from the President of Guinea Bissau. He said it quite clearly of what we are going to do with the consignment would be guided by science, under the processes of validation, we’ll now know where to go.

“In terms of the question of whether it comes with a cost. It was handed to me without an invoice so I assume it doesn’t come with a cost. That’s my assumption. For that, I think the Madagascar issue and the Chinese issue should be laid to rest.”