NGOs in health react to lack of funds in Coronavirus National Trust Fund

The Ghana Coalition of NGOs in Health has expressed shock at the news that there is a lack of funds in the COVID-19 National Trust Fund.

The Fund was set up by the President to help in the COVID-19 fight.

Chairperson of the Board of Trustees of National COVID-19 Trust Fund, Sophia Akuffo lamented the lack of funds in the Fund.

According to her, with no more funds coming into the National Trust Fund, they have had to, for instance, hand back the warehouse that housed medical supplies for the coronavirus in its possession, to the Ghana Army, its original owners.

But National Chairman of the Coalition of NGOs in Health, Bright Amissah Nyarko believes that the board of trustees have not been proactive enough to maintain the funds in the Fund

“It is their mandate to raise more funds and not just to be there. If you are waiting for someone to contribute the funds without you doing anything, then it is also a lazy way of managing the fund. I think they should be more productive in looking for funding. By now they shouldn’t be even telling the public that there is no money in the fund.

How many fundraising activities have they done? How transparent is the fund and who knows what activities are being done to raise funds into the Fund? We don’t hear of all these things but only know that there is a fund”, he told Samuel Eshun on the Happy Morning Show.

Bright Amissah Nyarko opined that President Akufo-Addo did his part to set up this Fund. However, the onus lies on the board of trustees to manage the Fund well. “The President has done his part by instituting a trust fund. The COVID-19 Fund has not been smooth but the President has done well. It is left with the managers. They should rise and be proactive”, he added.

He furthered that when it comes to accountability, the Board has also not done much to convince people to contribute towards the Fund.

“I believe that a lot of the corporate institutions are not adding on because probably they are not getting value for money or they are not satisfied with what the fund has been used for. We must be careful about that. The money we took into the fund; what are the tangibles we see from that and those things have not been clearly seen by people”.

Meanwhile, he has urged the media to use its platform to publicize the Trust Fund as it publicizes the COVID-19 disease.

“We must publicize it and all the activities we want to do with it so that people can know what they can support”, he stated.

The Parliament of Ghana passed the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) National Trust Fund Act, 2020 (Act 1013) on Thursday, March 27, 2020. The Fund was set up to receive and manage contributions and donations from well-meaning individuals, groups and corporate bodies to support the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.