Civic Hive, a nongovernmental organisation , recently opened a can of worms by accusing the Federal Ministry of Health of engaging in hanky-panky business with regards to recent purchases of Personal Protective Equipment . A spokesman of the NGO disclosed that going by the information it obtained as at August 1, 2020, from the Nigerian Open Contracting Portal , the ministry reportedly spent about N860miliion to acquire assorted PPE, including ordinary face masks.
When journalists sought clarifications on the mindboggling allegations from the health ministry, the Director of Information, Media and Publicity, Olujimi Oyetomi, was quoted as saying, “Don’t let us reduce our noble profession of journalism to playing mischief. I will not be surprised if you come up with nothing truthful about the so-called expose. You should be able to know fake news.”
And if indeed the ministry contracted to purchase the items in question, documentary evidence should be provided indicating how the contracts were allocated to disprove the allegation that only one supplier cornered as much as 50 percent of the entire order.