The Chamber for Local Governance (ChaLoG) has noted with grave concern the unacceptable and unprofessional conduct of the Hon. Municipal Chief Executive of the Ejisu District Assembly in returning thirty (30) Head Potters who were headed to the Northern Region to escape the harsh realities of a two week lockdown on their welfare and living conditions.
ChaLoG is completely at a loss why government appointees (especially MMDCEs) who know or ought to have known truly well the obvious insanitary conditions that many of these head potters live on a daily basis and yet besides the mere promises made by government to these head potters nothing concrete has been done to appropriately accommodate these category of people in living and working mainly in the Greater Accra and Ashanti Regions.
The unacceptable and unprofessional conduct of the Ejisu Chief Executive simply portrayed how unready the Metropolitan/Municipal/District Assemblies (MMDAs) within the epicenters of the COVID 19 were prior to the lockdown. MMDCEs as head of their respective security councils should have known that some people were necessarily going to make the attempt to travel outside of the lockdown areas to their home towns to avert the harsh realities of the 2 week lockdown as many of them simply live from hand to mouth on daily basis if they do not venture out to do any work or render a service for a daily income.
ChaLoG therefore expected the MMDCEs in the affected MMDAs to have collaborated and shared intelligence and readied themselves for such scenarios to appropriately deal with it as and when it does happen. If this were to be done by the affected MMDAs that were locked down, their respective security councils would have prepared and designated public facilities and churches to temporarily hold these head potters and other people to be immediately tested for COVID 19 rather than just unacceptably asking them to move back to Accra where they were expected to be coming from.
ChaLoG finally calls on the MMDA Security Councils of the 260 District Assemblies to as a matter of urgency share intelligence among themselves to help stem the community to community spread of COVID 19 in the country.
Long Live Local Governance
Long Live ChaLoG
Long Live Ghana
Signed
1. Dr. Richard Fiadomor President 0243138633
2. Hon Romeo Elikplim Akahoho Executive Secretary 0244967680
3. Hon Alhaji Ibrahim F. Faila Public Relations Officer 0244237456
4. Ing. Joshua Quist Director of Research 0546456940
CHAMBER FOR LOCAL GOVERNANCE (ChaLoG)
P. O BOX SK 330, SAKUMONO ESTATES, TEMA
PRESS RELEASE
1ST APRIL, 2020
Minister of Local Government and Rural Development
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