We’re heading to a national crisis over govt's poor management of coronavirus - Segbefia

Former Health Minister under the erstwhile John Dramani Mahama administration, Alex Segbefia is predicting that Ghana could soon witness a national crisis in the face of the coronavirus outbreak.

Mr. Segbefia, on Rainbow Radio’s morning show, Frontline on Monday, complained about the poor implementation of the measures adopted by the government in dealing with the global pandemic.

He said the concerns raised by the COVID-19 team set by the former president have been the timing of the actions and implementations because they have not been done in the best possible manner.

He faulted the government for delaying the lockdown; a situation he explained increased our cases.

Aside from that, the lockdown was poorly planned without any proper data to help in dealing with the outbreak.

Although he was of the view that some positive measures had been taken by the government to deal with the COVID-19 outbreak, he insisted we delayed in dealing with the outbreak.

Mr. Alex Segbefia said the lockdown announced should have taken effect the same day it was announced since the 48-hours given for Ghanaians to stock food and other essentials increased our cases.

‘Before you do a lockdown, you must find a way of being able to do as many tests; random tests, not just contact tracing people for you to get an idea of how the illness is moving, what is happening, who is getting it,’ he added.

He described the lifting of the lockdown as premature since we do not have enough data to make a decision.



The lack of testing kits he stated made it difficult also for us to conduct enough testing.

When asked if the lockdown could be imposed again, he said the whole country could be lockdown if our cases get worse.

Meanwhile, he also admonished the government to intensify public education on the coronavirus.

He bemoaned the low education and asked the government to put in many efforts to educate the public.

He said there is a huge number of Ghanaians who don’t even know what is happening because there is no education ongoing and that is an area the government has to deal with.