Ten lawmakers to demand re-opening of borders

About ten Members of Parliaments whose constituencies share borders with Ghana’s neighbouring countries have formed an alliance to persuade the government to re-open the land borders.

The MPs explained that the closure is affecting the inhabitants of border towns and the earlier the borders are re-opened the better for the nation.

On Sunday, March 22, 2020, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo announced the closure of the country’s borders aimed at limiting the spread of the coronavirus disease in the country.

The country was, thus, closed to all but returning Ghanaians and foreign nationals with Ghanaian residence permits.

A year after the closure, air borders have since been re-opened but the land borders remain closed, a situation the MPs explain is affecting the lives of their constituents.

Speaking to the issue on Onua TV’s Maakye on Monday, MP for Jomoro Constituency in the Western Region Dorcas Affo-Toffey, who is championing the opening of the land borders, said “Jomoro has four approved borders and drivers are suffering”.

She said, “some people have migrated from Elubo. People were coming from Ivory Coast to the Elubo border to buy and sell and that was helping the economic activities there”.

“We thought it was going to be two or three months, but it’s been over a year and I thought the government has forgotten. Put protocols in place like the airport,” she suggested.

Madam Affo-Toffey said, “like the testing, we can have companies that do not charge much and people can pay for the test before they come to Ghana legally”.

She noted that as it stands “security personnel take bribes and allow people to come to Ghana. They don’t go through the testing and that poses danger”.

Asked on how much she thinks the people can afford to pay should testing be the option, the MP said “people are begging because of this closure, we can reduce the cost of testing to between GH¢50 to GH¢100 and they can afford”.

“We have a lot of land borders in Ghana and I had about ten MPs who share borders and they supported me. We are going to form an alliance to keep pushing. We shall keep on pushing until they are opened.”

Madam Affo-Toffey said, “we are going to have our meeting and we urged them all to be calm. We will fight for them until it’s opened and we shall also support them in our little way when it’s opened”.