Coronavirus: Be open-minded and accept criticisms - Government urged

Executive Director for Alliance for Social Equity and Public Accountability [ASEPA], Thompson Mensah, has urged government to be open-minded and take criticisms concerning COVID-19 in good faith because they are essentially all measures to keep the outbreak under control.

To him, he has been listening to all authorities involved in the response to the COVID-19 cases in the country but has realized that no appropriate plan has been outlined to manage the disease, rather it seems like immediate decisions are taken based on the rate of damage at hand.

“Be open and take criticisms in good faith as I describe its prepared plans as an activity and nothing else. A plan should have a larger framework of activities, where it will give you a framework of the activities you want to embark on. A plan does not work in isolation but with resources because we are fighting a deadly disease. Which robust plans when put in place as government claims cannot give us primary equipment to fight COVID 19,” the ASEPA boss said.

Speaking on UTV’s ‘Adekye Nsroma’ newspaper discussion segment, Thompson Mensah cited “I think a regional lockdown will do, everybody in a particular region should remain there and not move to any other region apart from where they are at the moment.”

He further added that “government should not create an impression as if those of us speaking against some of its laid out COVID-19 policies hate it, rather we are making sure we get out of this unexpected but worrying condition. Things are not under control therefore a feeling of such nature must not come from government.”

“What even shows the $100m COVID-19 allocated funds will be sufficient to contain the outbreak. What happens to our contingency funds, sinking funds and stabilization funds, these funds are usually put aside to curb emergency cases? Is government telling us it has provided 1cedi on its own to support the people of Ghana in emergency times than moving to IMF for the entire $100m allocated funds to contain COVID 19 disease in this country? Indeed, we are in critical times that demand critical actions from government, we can even raise this money in our own small ways,” he asserted.