Mr. Sillah during an interview on West Coast Radio on Tuesday responded to claims that the committee members on each of their sittings were paid the sum of 20, 000.
The Information minister, however, denied these claims, saying: “I can assure you that the Covid-19 Committee headed by the Vice President is never paid any dime.”
“We have never received any money for this. This is a national calling. As ministers we all go there to contribute, strategise, come up with ideas, programmes and policies,” he continued. “But we have never been paid any money, we have never demanded to be paid any money so that has to be made very, very clear,” he emphasised.
On the issue of the Vice President and other ministers who tested positive of Covid-19 being quarantined at the 5-star Coco Ocean Resort, Mr. Sillah claimed not to have any knowledge of where they were quarantined.
He further claimed that even if that was the case, it would not have been done out of segregation, saying all the hotels have the same facilities. However, the host Mr. Gomez was quick to correct him on that notion, putting it to him that Coco Ocean is a superior hotel.
In trying to justify what he claimed not to have any knowledge about, the Information minister went on to say that ministers at quarantine facilities need to be doing their work to keep their ministries functioning.
He said the government has negotiated a flat rate with almost all the hotels that are accommodating people for quarantine to meet the budget.
But it is certainly arguable that the rate at Cocoa Ocean will not be the same judging by its superiority to the rest of the hotels.
