Lockdown: Contract cleaners ask to be exempted

Contract cleaners in the country through the Contract Cleaners Association of Ghana have expressed displeasure as they have not been exempted from the lockdown as announced by the President.

Answering a question posed to the Ministry of Information on whether cleaners can go to work, Information Minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah replied in the negative.

Speaking to Francis Abban on the Morning Starr Monday, Vice Chairman of the cleaners association Solomon Yilepoie explained that some of their members provide cleaning services to some of the institutions that have been exempted from the lockdown.

He said “honestly this came as a shock to us because since the president announced the lockdown. Even before that, from the time this pandemic was announced and classified by the WHO as a pandemic, the members of the contract cleaners association have reviewed our cleaning protocols to ensure decontamination of the surfaces of the places we’ve been cleaning. So right from the word go we’ve been involved in combating the spread of this deadly virus.”

“And we have clients who are on the list of essential service providers and we were wondering why the government would exclude us from the list of organisations who are providing essential services.”

Expressing his displeasure he said “how do we expect these organisations who are classified as providing essential services to work without having their cleaning companies cleaning and disinfecting their offices. What if an essential staff is infected and has droplets on surfaces and other essential staff also get in contact with those surfaces and you don’t have a cleaning company to clean and disinfect these surfaces, the consequences would be chaotic.”

He, however, noted that some companies have provided ID cards to some of the cleaning companies but others do not have the same opportunity.

“Some of the clients expect that we on our own make arrangements for these things to have access to clean their facilities and its a bit challenging. So we were hoping that the government will recognise our contribution to the spread of this pandemic and would come out clear that cleaning companies that are at least providing certain services to these essential organisations are included in the exempted list,” he added.