Nothing wrong with training 2,000 NYA volunteers to fight coronavirus – Oppong Nkrumah

Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah in the face of massive criticism, has said there is nothing wrong with investing in the training of some 2,000 volunteers to help in the fight against the novel Coronavirus.

According to him, contrary to the popular adage which states that ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’, the attempts by government to contain the spread of the virus has proven that indeed more human efforts are needed to spread caution.

Several concerns were raised by a section of the Ghanaian public after Chief Executive Officer of NYA, Sylvester Tetteh announced at the minister’s press briefing on April 16, that his outfit is set to train about 2,000 young volunteers to augment government’s efforts in the fight against the coronavirus.

In the opinions of several Ghanaians, the Information Service Department and the National Commission for Civic Education should rather be equipped with the needed capital and training to undertake such initiatives.

But the Information Minister thinks otherwise. He said more hands are needed on deck to cushion government’s efforts in fighting the virus.

Kojo Oppong Nkrumah said, “The Twi people have a proverb that says ‘too much meat does not spoil the soup’, if you’re supporting the Information Services Department to go out there, for example, what they’ve been doing in Bukom; if you’re assisting the NCCE to do their bit and the NYA says they are also going to add some 2,000 young people who have access to various platforms, particularly social platforms that they use for all sorts of things…I cannot see why we say they should stop…if it’s a compliment to what is being done I’m not sure we can speak against it…”

He further dispelled speculations that the two departments in question - ISD and NCCE - have not received enough support so far in the fight against the coronavirus.

In his words, “the ISD, for example, has not had as much help as it has had in the last two years or so since I’ve been minister as it has had now, to go out there to do a bit more work…is it 100 per cent where we want it to be? No, but it has been a marked improvement on what we used to have… ”

The Information Minister was speaking in an interview on JoyNews TV prior to the president’s seventh address to the nation of measures taken so far to contain the deadly coronavirus.