MONROVIA – FrontPageAfrica has in its possession a contract agreement between the Ministry of Health and the First Responder, a company known to be owned by Montserrado County Senator Saah Joseph who is also a high-ranking member of the governing Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC).
Senator Joseph is also the Senate Executive Committee Chairman and a member of the Senate Committee on Health.
The US$140,000 contract was signed by the Minister of Health, Dr. Wilhemina Jallah and the Executive Director of First Responder, Mr. Milton Nyanplu.
The one-year agreement’s main objective is for First Responders to, behalf of the Ministry of Health, provide a 24/7 ambulance service in Grand Cape Mount, Bomi, Grand Bassa and Montserrado Counties for the general public in the areas of operation.
When contacted for comments, Senator Joseph confirmed that he owns the First Responder Organization and stated that the First Responder is a legally registered company that has been doing business in Liberia.
For her part, Health Minister Jallah confirmed the agreement but said she has no information that shows that the company is owned by the Senator. According to her, the Representative of the company who signed is Mr. Milton Nyanplu. “I didn’t signed agreement with Senator Joseph I signed with Mr. Milton Nyanplu, executive director of First Responder.”
The agreement also required that First Responder, which was often portrayed as a humanitarian gesture of Senator Joseph and his own means of giving back to society, provide foot pedal hand washing station in various strategic locations including market buildings, community public places and health facilities.
First responder is also responsible under the agreement to provide training workshops for COVID-19 awareness and prevention, carry out contract tracing in the community for persons suspected to have come in contact with a suspected or confirmed COVID-19 case.
First Responder will also provide primary healthcare in rural Montserrado County working in conjunction with recognized public/private community healthcare facilities, provide valuable health supplies to primary healthcare facilities such as gloves, sanitation kits, and other essential supplies in those facilities service delivery.
The agreement also calls for First Responder to provide logistics support for the operations of responder fleet of ambulances such as fuel and lubricant, provide stipends for responder through the local health teams in the locality assigned and oversee the operations of Responder through the local health teams in the locality assigned.
“In consideration of the services to be rendered by the Service provider under this Agreement, the Ministry of health shall pay or cause to be paid to the service provider a total amount of US$140,000.00 (one hundred forty thousand United States dollars) for satisfactory performance of the service here contained.
“As per the agreement fifty percent of the consideration shall be remitted to the service provider upon signing the Agreement and the remaining fifty percent will be paid upon the submittal of final report by the service provider pursuant to the scope of the work stated above.”
Conflict of Interest
Senator Joseph finds himself conflicted in this contract being that he serves as a member of the Senate Committee on Health in addition to being a high-ranking member of the ruling CDC.
When contacted for comments on the matter, Maryland County Senator Gble-Gbo Brown said, “Technically it is conflict of interest; you cannot be providing oversight and benefiting from the same project – that is a conflict of interest.”
The contract, FrontPageAfrica gathered did not go through the Public Procurement Concession Commission requirements, taking into consideration its value.