Chairman of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 pandemic, Boss Mustapha has denied knowledge of Madagascar demanding 170,000 Euros from the Federal Government for herbal drugs which arrived the country days ago.
Mustapha who reacted to claim of the Nigerian government being asked to pay €170,000 for the Madagascar herbal mixture delivered to President Buhari on Saturday May 16, by the visiting President of Guinea Bissau Umaro Sissoco Embalo, said same mixture was taken to other African countries without an invoice.
He said “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. 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 clear 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.”