Ramaphosa, Mkhize tussle over vaccines

PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa and Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize allegedly tussled behind the scenes over where to procure which jabs, resulting in the country's vaccine roll-out programme being negatively affected and the procurement process delayed.

Sources say Mkhize preferred Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine while Ramaphosa and some members of the ministerial advisory committee on Covid-19 allegedly rallied against the Russians, in favour of the Johnson & Johnson, the American multinational pharmaceutical company.

The differences happened at the height of the country's second wave as the Covid-19 cases breached the one million mark while the deaths exceeded 40000.

Sputnik, which some media houses tried to ridicule as unsafe, has produced over 1.2 billion doses and has received orders from 15 countries around the world, including two in Africa.

A bureaucrat close to Mkhize has alleged that Ramaphosa has been “treating the health minister like a small child”.

“Ramaphosa has no respect