Health Ministry begins search for fake drug cartel

Deputy Minister of Health, Dr. Benjamin Kumbour, says his ministry is investigating allegations that a cartel is replacing drugs meant for northern sector with fake ones.

Officials say the cartel working at ministry's depots in Kumasi and Techiman interchange their fake drugs for the originals meant for the three northern regions for onward distribution to the north.

Dr Kumbour told Joy News on Friday the ministry is taking a serious look at the matter and would soon crack down on the operatives.

He hinted that the ministry has been receiving several leads to the perpetrators of the crime.

Authorities are however “following it on the quiet just to be able to get a very good example.”

Dr Kumbour stressed that although authorities are yet to ascertain how the fake drugs are brought into the country checks have shown they are mostly smuggled in.

“How they are circulated internally also means that there is a collaboration with people who legally are entitled to being with those drugs,” he told Joy News' Sammy Darko.

The cartel, he emphasised, is a well-knitted network which he said would be crashed immediately.

Story by Fiifi Koomson/Myjoyonline.com
This was couched from a Joy News story filed by Sammy Darko