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The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has urged Government to take bold steps now, including a phased lockdown and a rapid deployment of funds, to give Ghana a fighting chance against the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to the party, the only realistic window of opportunity available to Ghana to put in an effective mechanism to control the spread of the viral disease should be measured in days rather than weeks, as we race against time.
 
The party’s concerns, expressed by members of its 13-member Covid-19 Technical Team to offer its expertise to government and allied agencies in the fight against the deadly pandemic, made the suggestion and several others at a press encounter in Accra, Tuesday, March 24, 2020.

Said Cassiel Ato Forson, MP for Ajumako-Enyan-Esiam and former Deputy Minister of Finance and Economic Planning: “But these or any other proposals will require the rapid deployment of funds to procure needed equipment and supplies; improve awareness and accelerate our readiness; reinforce the healthcare system; establish a morally sound safety net for the vulnerable; and safeguard our economy & enterprises against the inevitable shocks. We must be able to use those funds in response to the evolving situation in the interest of the nation, which requires us to also have great flexibility to reassess and reprioritize over the coming weeks.”

The NDC Team appealed to Government “to amend the proposed utilization of the $3 billion Eurobond proceeds to make funds available to cater for COVID-19 related expenses and the possible adverse economic shocks that may occur,” saying Ghana cannot afford the waiting time for government’s entreaties to the IMF and World Bank for $1 billion to materialize.

“We harbour sincere reservations about the wisdom of that course under the time pressures we face. We are reliably informed - and the government is aware - that any such facility would not be available to us until the second or third week of April. That timeline is constrained by the meeting schedule of the boards of the respective organisations and the processes involved in receiving the funds even under emergency approval. Our current state of readiness and the exponential growth of the plague we are fighting suggests that we cannot wait that long. It is with this in mind that my colleagues and I wish to propose an alternative strategy that would avail Ghana immediately of the needed resources to drastically escalate our readiness and resilience.”

A public health expert and Professor of Global Surgery, Dr. Grace Ayensu-Danquah, also a member of the team, stressed the importance of effective information dissemination to crisis management, and urged government not to withhold information from the public but to deal with the public factually.

“This is not about fear mongering or heightening anxiety. Rather, it is about experts in the field and not political actors providing accurate information for the public to understand what is happening so they can respond to advice and measures taken by authorities.”

She said a key preventive measure in combating the Covid-19 is contact tracing, which she said works better in an environment where the public has full disclosure of the movements of infected persons.

“The timeliness and accuracy of information put out by government and regulatory agencies is therefore imperative. Conflicting information breeds confusion and mistrust, which increases the vulnerability of the public to fake news and fake cures”, she said.

Need to know
According to Dr. Grace Ayensu-Danquah, a number of questions beg for urgent answers to which government needed to respond.
How many people are on self-quarantine
How far have we come in securing test kits and supplies
How many Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) have we and how far we have come in procuring more PPE
The number of medical staff who have been trained and at what specific level to manage the pandemic
Accurate information on how many more medical staff are left to be trained and what specific training are they currently receiving
The role of the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies as part of the public tracing agencies
The role of the NCCE in this fight
What specific logistics and resources the NCCE has received from government to help them do better and quicker public education
The role of NADMO as the emergency relief organization and how government is liaising with them and resourcing them and how that assistance is manifested at the local level
The role of the security agencies
How many quarantine centres we have nationwide, where they are located and their capacity.
Number of isolation centres nationwide, their location and capacity. What personnel are staffing the centres and what clinical services we have available at those facilities.