Mahama Ayariga kicks against repatriating Guinean, Burkinabe coronavirus patients

Member of Parliament for Bawku Central, Mahama Ayariga says plans by government to send some 10 foreigners who tested positive for Coronavirus is a dangerous mission.

According to him, the two Bukinabes and eight Guineans should be treated here in Ghana as sending them back puts more people at risk on contracting the disease.

The 10 form part of a group that was arrested by security officials in Tamale after they entered the country illegally from Burkina Faso earlier this week.

Government has hinted of plans to sent them back to their home countries for treatment together with other members of the group who tested negative.

But the MP who is also a member of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Parliament says that will be a risky move.

“The fact that we are scared does not mean that we should be doing all the wrong things. If you decide to move such patients, you are not only endangering the lives of such patients but also endangering the lives of all those who are going to participate in the process of sending them across the other side of the border. So healthwise, if you want to do that, it just doesn’t make sense,” he said on Citi FM’s Eyewitness News.

Mahama Ayariga added that aside from the health risks, the persons involved are ECOWAS citizens hence “we are supposed to grant them certain minimum humanitarian courtesy as citizens of ECOWAS… once they are here, you have to subject them to the quarantine arrangements here and treat them like human beings and not endanger your own citizens and other citizens of ECOWAS and send them back.”

The legislator further noted that the government will be doing a great good taking care of the foreigners because the system in their countries may not be as effective as Ghana’s.

“So let us work together as a sub-region and contain the virus and not be acting selfishly in this situation.”

Meanwhile, authorities are still searching for one of the eight Guinean patients who escaped from the facility in which they are being quarantined in Tamale.

The patient who is reported to be a woman in her early 20s, scaled over a wall at the facility on Monday leaving behind her belongings.

Northern Regional Minister, Salifu Saeed, described the development as ‘a very disturbing situation’.

He told the media that “since Monday up till Tuesday morning, I have not slept, with my security people. I directed that they should use all their networks to be able to track the person down and get her.”

Ghana’s case count for the novel coronavirus pandemic currently stands at 195.