Observance of coronavirus protocols low – NPP’s Kwarteng

A member of the communications team of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Kwesi Kwarteng, has stated that in view of the disregard for COVID-19 protocols, especially at the funeral of the late former General Secretary of the NPP Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie, popularly known as Sir John and many others, the general performance on the observance of the COVID-19 protocols has been very low in the country.

He said the whole country has a weak attitude of not being strict on the laws legislated to guard against indiscipline in the country.

This, he said, includes citizens from both sides of the political divide. And that the indiscipline seen in terms of the COVID-19 protocols in some religious gatherings and recently at the funeral of Sir John was committed by both the NPP and NDC sympathizers at the funeral.

Mr Kwarteng in an interview with Johnnie Hughes on the New Day show on TV3, Monday, June 7, called on the police to investigate and prosecute offenders who disregarded the laws on COVID-19 protocols.

He was speaking on the heels of the blatant disregard for the coronavirus protocols at Sir John’s funeral in his hometown Sakora Wonoo in the Ashanti Region over the weekend.

“As a people our general performance and credibility when it comes to enforcement of laws has been low and that is not only with respect to COVID-19 protocols and the laws surrounding it. If you look at the law, for instance GIPC Act, which forbids foreigners from trading in this country, we have not been able to enforce it."

"If you look at a law like the Road Safety Regulations Act, our performance on it has been low. We continue to record accidents everyday, if you go to sanitation laws, probably it was worse but as of now it’s becoming better. And so our general performance on some of our laws has been low and so it is the more reason we are having some of these challenges” he said.

He went on to add that "we go to parliament, pass the Bill into an Act, it’s supposed to regulate our conducts, it’s supposed to regulate our behaviour and at the end we have political leadership, of course from both divide because if you look at Sir John’s funeral for instance, we had the NDC there so it shouldn’t be made to look like it was strictly an NPP organized thing. At some point we may have to forfeit some of these protocols even though it’s illegal in fulfilment of some constitutional duties, that is, what we witnessed during election 2020."

"We have religious leaders also breaking the protocols, recently we heard about the Christ Embassy instance. So if you look at this, any person who may want to equalize can probably advance such an argument by referencing the incidence and precedence of the law not being enforced properly."

“But I am not sure any of us is trying to say that if a law was broken in angle ‘A’ and because we were not able to enforce it, probably we should also advance that it should also be broken in angle ‘B’. So in the end, what we should call for is an investigation into the matters and prosecutions and again also those who want to break the law, we should also call on them to respect the law”.

On his part, Mohammed Abdul Aziz, former Member of Parliament for Mion pointed out that “it’s not just about us making laws and not being able to implement them, the lawmakers themselves have become lawless. We have the police going to court to prevent people from demonstrating because of COVID, churches are unable to operate because of COVID, we all are restrained in a way."

“And yet we have the funeral of a political figure, we had the Vice President, the number two person in this country, the Second-in-Command, the chairman of the police in this country, the very police that stops all of us from engaging in what we want to do because of COVID, we had that Vice President in such a thick crowd and government is tight-lipped about it”.