Allowing Ebola Vaccine trial shows NDC insensitivity - Wontumi

The Ashanti Regional Chairman of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mr. Bernard Antwi Boasiako has commended Members of Parliament for pulling a break on the intended trial of the Ebola Vaccine in the Volta Region.

The NPP chairman said the move by Parliament of Ghana was in the right order, wondering how government, under the leadership of President John Dramani Mahama, could allow such an exercise to be conducted in his homeland, without the necessary education and approval.

The decision by the World Health Organization (WHO) Country Office to commence trial of the Ebola Vaccine was met with uproar by a section of Ghanaians, including the Parliament of Ghana, which instructed the Health Ministry to halt the exercise.

Members of the august house took strong exception to the vaccine trial and have in the process summoned Prof. Alex Dodoo, a Lecturer at the School of Medicine and Dentistry of the University of Ghana, before the house, over alleged derogatory comments.

Speaking in an interview with The Chronicle, Chairman Wontumi, as he is popularly known, said the decision to allow the Ebola Vaccine trial by the NDC administration once again demonstrated government’s lack of care and concern about the precious lives of Ghanaians.

The NPP chairman recounted how in 2014, the President, through the Ministry of Youth and Sports, nearly accepted the responsibility to host the AFCON Tournament at a time some of our neighbouring countries were beset with the deadly disease.

According to him, but for the agitations raised by many Ghanaians, the government would have accepted the call to host the tournament, a situation which to him was once again being played out following the decision to allow the World Health Organization (WHO) to use the country as a test case for the Ebola Vaccine.

“I don’t know what President Mahama was thinking when he accepted to allow the trial to be done here in Ghana and more especially at their own backyard, Volta Region, how could he be so insensitive to the plights of Ghanaians. People are already reeling under intense economic hardship and all you can is to pile up more pressure, there must be something wrong with this government,” he noted.

The NPP chairman further noted “and to add salt to injury, the President and his people decided to make mockery of the people by giving them a meagre GHc 200 when the WHO has approved that each person be given over $2,000 dollars, how can our government be so wicked to its own people,”

Chairman Wontumi, therefore, pointed out that the NDC has given yet another reason to Ghanaians, including their own loyalists, a reason to vote them out in 2016 – “because they care less about the problems Ghanaians are going through,”