COVID-19 LOCK DOWN IN GHANA AND MATTERS ARISING
Since the president announced the partial lockdown of the country on the 27th March, 2020, to enable government control and prevent the spread of the virus, confirmed covid-19 cases kept on increasing compelled the president to extend the lockdown for one more week.
The president in his fifth address, declared free supply of water to residents and supply of food to the vulnerable ones in the affected regions in the country. Subsequently, the president announced that, government will fully cover the bills of electricity for low-income consumers for April, May, and June 2020 as the country’s battles the novel coronavirus which has infected 408 people.
Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in his address to the nation announced some “bold” measures to mitigate the local impact of the COVID-19 pandemic of which he announced the supply of PPEs, gloves, nose marks, examination gloves shoe covers and many other as vital tools for frontline health workers to protect themselves. All these are pivotal steeps to fight the virus by further extended the lock down but, it did not go down well with some residents in the country of which they expressed their fear of being starved with hunger in their homes. According to them when a community monitoring was conducted in the Ejisu Constituency, the Bosomtwi Constituency, and the Oforikrom constituency, residents did not hide their plight about how the lockdown has caused them and the availability of access to food, hand sanitizers being a problematic.
Even though, government announcement to reduce the prices of low-income electricity consumers has not reflected their lives and appealing to government to consider extending the food supply to everybody because some people are not disable but they strive to eat. Speaking to a trader (name withheld), she lamented that she sells second hand-cloths in the central business hub and because of the lockdown, she hardly get food to eat and she is a mother of two children taken care off and she has no one to support her in the next weeks to come.
"I'm a mother of two, I sell second hand-cloths to take care of my children since my lovely husband passed away 5-year a go but due to the partial lockdown, we find it difficult to get daily bread". She cried. But, one may ask; where is the food government announced to be given to the 40,000 people and how sufficient, or quality of the said food.
To unravel at the authenticity of the food distribution, the Municipal Chief Executive for the Ejisu Municipal, Madam Beatrice Serwa Derkyi, confirmed the poor nature of the food openly expressed worried contended that it is a disgrace to her person and that of the president to distribute such food without meat to people. According to her, she called the regional woman organizer of the led political party in government who is in charge of the distribution of the food together with selected regional executives and complained to her to improve on the quality and quantity of the food if not, she will not distribute the food, because the public complain about the poor state of the food. These mix reactions from the public are not alien to the Regional Minister, Hon.
Simon Osei-Mensah of which he affirmed to address them at the national level. But he was quick to reiterate that the virus is a global pandemic hence, caution all and sundry a heed to the protocols and directives to help avert the covid-19. Story By; Benjami Barnabas Asalimba & Akgri M. Daniel
