June 17, 2020//-The Savannah Regional Secretary of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Salisu Bi- awurbi has called on the President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to as a matter of urgency wakeup from his ”deep sleep” to ensure that the entire region and Ghana at large are not overwhelmed with COVID-19 cases.
This comes in the wake of the region recording 34 new cases as announced by the Ghana Health Services in Accra during a Press briefing to update the new cases recorded in the country.
Currently, confirmed COVID-19 cases in Ghana have risen to 12,193 with 58 deaths. It also recorded 4326 recoveries, according to the Ghana Health Service (GHS).
In a statement signed by the NDC Secretary, he appealed to the President and the government of Ghana to equip and earmark containment and isolation centres in the major Towns and District Capitals within Savannah Region.
Mr Bi- awurbi said the centres must be meet the requisite standard for a dignified holding of patients since those currently earmarked in the Savannah Region are not only poorly ventilated and illuminated but they are also poorly maintained, needing massive refurbishment and renovations.
He added that to put few beds and mattresses together and name it an isolation or containment centre is an insult to the good people of region and betrays the huge sums of the tax payers monies Parliament approved for government to judiciously use for the intended purpose of fighting the coronavirus properly.
He suggested other means of preventing the Corvid-19 pandemic from spreading including the engagement of Assembly persons to educate residents of the electoral areas about the measures of prevention of the disease. Zion Abdul-Rauf reports
Read the full statement below:
NANA ADDO MUST WAKE UP FROM HIS DEEP SLUMBER BEFORE THE
CORONA VIRUS CONSUMES ALL PEOPLE IN SAVANNAH
The announcement of 34 new Corona Virus cases in the Savannah Region, 18 in the East Gonja and 16 in the Central Gonja by the Director General of the Ghana Health Service has sent shock waves and justifiable apprehension to all well meaning inhabitants of the Region.
This brings to 35, the Total Number of Recorded cases in the Region.
This recent spike in the Region has come at a time that the Nana Addo’s Government is absolutely clueless, has lost the fight against the virus, thrown his hands in despair, and virtually staring at the virus as if to urge it on to do it’s worse and to leave the remainder to what the disease may choose to ignore.
We are pretty sure that but for the timely donations of PPEs by H.E JDM and his Parliamentary Candidates in the Region, which became and it’s still the single biggest life saving donations to Health facilities within the Region, a lot more people and Health Staff would have contracted the virus.
This has brought painful memories of the wicked agenda of Nana Addo led NPP Government in not only delaying but frustration the completion of ultra Modern State of the Art Health Infrastructure which were generously be quitted to the current government by the Visionary John Mahama Led Administration but which sadly ought to suffer needless project execution delays and some are sadly even recklessly abandoned.
If not, by now the Buipe, Sawla and Salaga Hospitals would have been running and saving lives. If these projects were religiously followed through, in the Nature H.E John Mahama had envisaged before souring funding and starting them, the Region would not have been gripped with this hysteric panic.
We therefore call on the slumbering Akufo-Addo’s Government, the Regional Minister and his army of non performing District Chief Executives to at least exhibit leadership for once and do the following as a matter of urgency to save lives and property:
- Liase with all Elected Honourable Assembly Members, Unit Committees, Chiefs and Community Leaders together with NCCE, Ghana Health Service, Health Volunteers, Community and Environmental Health Staffs and other relevant stakeholders to begin immediately, the long awaited aggressive Community Sensitizatiom and Education throughout the Region.
- Distribute the locked up face masks, the materials of which were sent down from Accra and to additionally procured many others using the monies received from the Covid-19 Resources recently approved by Parliament and distribute them to our market women, traders, youth groups, Palaces and School Children in the Region.
3.Conduct Random Mass Testing accross the Region.
- Properly fumigate, using the appropriate Chemicals, all public places such as markets, schools, mosques, Churches etc. We insist and demand proper fumigation not the Charade of fumigation that the Assemblies allegedly undertook some two months ago.
- The Government must Properly Equip and earmark containment and isolation centres in the major Towns and District Capitals within Savannah. The centres must be meet the requisite standard for a dignified holding of patients.
Those currently earmarked in the Savanah Region are not only poorly ventilated and illuminated but they are also poorly maintained, needing massive refurbishment and renovations.
To put few beds and mattresses together and name it an isolation or containment centre is an insult to the good people of Savannah. It betrays the huge sums of the tax payers monies Parliament approved for government to judiciously use it for the intended purpose of fighting to defeat COVID-19 properly. We deserve better.
- We hearby serve Notice to the District Chief Executives and Ministers in the Savannah Region that we are monitoring all the diversions of Public Goods to their private gains and that of the NPP Parliamentary candidates and that sooner ‘NOT’ later, they shall be called upon to account for their stewardship.
They should desist henceforth the Practice of passing off John Mahama and his MPs Projects as that of their own. The project theft is becoming one too many.
It is not the fault of NDC that they elected Incompetent Parliamentary Candidates in Savannah Region and no amount of Projects theft and crediting same to the NPP Parliamentary Candidates will make the Bad Products appear Good.
Our People are wiser than the NPP on Savannah thinks.
- With this spike in the Corona Virus case count in the Region, we call on the Nana Addo Government to test all Students, if it’s still insistent on reopening schools, before they resume for their studies.
We also call on them to be mandatorily housed, be fed and provided with the necessary items that will make their stay conducive. This should include their Teachers. The students should be cocooned from contacts with the external environment for the entire period of their stay in school while providing adequate PPEs and sanitizer for the Students and their Teachers.
- We also call the administrator of the Covid- 19 Trust Funds to immediately and aggressively utilised the funds to fight the Virus at this time the Virus is stubbornly taking a strong hold on Rural Communities through communal spread.
SALISU BE-AWURIBE
Savannah Regional Secretary
