Concerned Citizens of Ketu South Municipality have thrown a challenge to the President Nana Addo led Government to be proactive and truthful in handling the spread of COVID-19 Pandemic in the Ketu South Municipality and in the whole country.
According to the spokesperson of the Concerned Citizens, ever since the Aflao border in the Municipality was closed down, no efforts have been made by the government to provide a livelihood support to the people in the area. He said the border closure has led to a halt in their businesses and so they need support.
The people living within the area are now finding it very difficult to get their daily bread in order to look after their children and families.
He also said that since Ketu South Municipality is one of the busiest border towns, the government should have known that the area will be a hot zone for the spread of COVID-19, as such, the government should have put measures in place to help prevent people from contracting the disease.
The concerned citizens said the government has left the area unconcerned without enforcing the necessary measures like deploying more security men to support existing ones at border posts to help block all unapproved routes between Togo and Ghana.
They have accused the government of not taking the border towns especially Aflao seriously. He added that, looking at the huge revenues generated in Aflao Border post,the people of Ketu South Municipality should not be denied when it comes to sharing of national cake and also the welfare of the people living within the are during this COVID-19 period.
The spokesperson also lamented on how the government failed to embark on main road blocking for the COVID-19 spread screening,.
He suggested that the imposition of night curfew on main Aflao border towns to help prevent smuggling of foreigners into Ghana at night and equipping of health professionals in the Municipal Health Directorate with the necessary COVID-19 PPEs, enlisting all health workers at the municipal hospital as frontline workers will help them to be proactive measure to combat the disease.
With that,the concerned citizens are making a distress call to the President Nana Addo government to make sure that,the people of Ketu South have their fair share of national cake towards adequate preparedness for the pandemic through appropriate utilisation of the COVID-19 Trust Fund and IMF loan granted to fight against the spread of COVID-19 Pandemic with immediate effect.
The concerned citizens comments was necessitated by the six COVID-19 confirmed reported cases who were reported to be Nigerians who passed through unapproved routes into Ketu South Municipality and got intercepted by community people and the appropriate intervention by security men.
Mr. Dan K Jerry Sorokpo who is the spokesperson of the concerned citizens group is appealing to the authorities to sit up in handling the matter since the spread of COVID-19 virus within the past four weeks across the country is scary and authorities must stop playing politics with the facts in order to adopt punitive measure to combat the spread of deadly COVID-19 Pandemic.
He also suggested that with the new COVID-19 outbreak case recorded in Ketu South, the Municipal Chief Executive in collaboration with his government should consider the strict enforcement of the suggestions below….
1.Those foreigners with COVID-19 virus must not be kept in the municipality but should either be sent to Ghana’s National Capital or sent back to their country with immediate effect.
2.Those who aided them in crossing the border and those security men who had contact with them must be quarantine immediately.
3.Main Road blocking for passenger screening for Cocid 19 and prohibiting of Okada business (motor bikes carrying other people) in the Municipality must take effect immediately
4.The mass contact tracing or mass testing of people in the Municipality must take effect immediately.
5.The Social distancing in our various markets must be enforced by the KSMA or closing down of our various markets pending mass testing with immediate effect.
6.The drivers must be enforced to adhere strictly to social distancing protocols in cars with immediate effect.
7.The KSMA must ban motorbike (Okada) carrying people in the Ketu South Municipality to curtail smuggling travellers along the border towns and also impose night curfew on border towns to help stop smuggling of foreigners at night.
8.Institute COVID-19 relief and livelihood support fund to the people of Ketu South with immediate effect and lockdown the area pending mass testing.
9.Deploy more security men to block all unapproved routes between Ghana and Togo with immediate effect.
10.The Stakeholders meeting including Political Party leaders must be organized immediately through social distancing protocol observation and also reach some potential stakeholders on phone calls to seek their opinions and task them to inform citizens in various communities about the latest development and how to take care of themselves at this COVID-19 outbreak period.
Signed;
Dan K Jerry Sorokpo.
A Concerned Ketu South Citizen.
MOB:0244228981.