The minority in Parliament have condemned President John Mahama for not commenting on the country’s cholera situation in his State of the Nation’s Address delivered last week.
Presenting what they called the ‘True State of the Nation Address’ at a press conference on Monday, Minority Leader, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, said the president’s selective support for Ebola-stricken countries while he left Ghanaians affected with cholera to their fate was hypocritical.
“In his 2015 State of the Nations Address, our president could not spare one sentence or even one word on cholera,” he lamented.
In 2014, the health sector faced a huge challenge containing the outbreak of cholera which assumed epidemic levels within months of its first reported case in the country.
Indeed, 2014 was the worst year since the early 70s that the nation had witnessed such high levels of cholera infections with reported cases exceeded 28,000 and 205 deaths,” he disclosed.
Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu said, “As the chairman of the authority of heads of states and governments in the ECOWAS zone, the president had to show solidarity with his colleagues in the sub-region, however, it is profoundly important that the president shows same if not greater care for his fellow Ghanaians who became so traumatised with the cholera outbreak.”
The Member of Parliament (MP) for Suame enquired, “How prepared is the nation if cholera should break out again in the face of the impending rain?” adding, “Mr President, charity begins at home.”
A total of 304 new cholera cases have so far been reported in the first 16 days of 2015 in six districts in the Greater Accra and Volta regions of the country.
The cases were recorded between January 1 and 16, with no deaths reported. As of January 16, 2015, a total of 29,248 cases, in¬cluding 243 deaths (case fatality rate of 0.8%) have been reported from 130 out of the 216 districts (60%) in all the 10 regions of the country.
The Suame MP, on behalf of the NPP also found it necessary to bring President Mahama’s attention to the ‘reality’ of the health situation across the sub-region.
“It’s also important to let the president know that in some of the Ebola countries, the reported cases were not up to 2000, in some of those countries, the reported cases of death is not up to 200 and if you have to jet to those countries to show solidarity, you should show similar concern for your country men and women who have lost their lives to cholera,” he hinted.
<<Print>>