Omane-Boamah Should Stop Playing Politics with COVID Vaccine Administration

As a key player of the John “Airbus-Payola” Dramani Mahama government that thoroughly and unconscionably bankrupted the John Agyekum-Kufuor-implemented National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), Dr. Edward Kofi Omane-Boamah did little to absolutely nothing to promote accessible and affordable healthcare in the country. So, it is rather strange and absurd for the former Mahama Communications Minister to smugly presume to lecture the relevant experts and authorities on how to administer the shortly expected COVID-19 vaccine consignments in the country (See “Don’t Deprive the Vulnerable of Coronavirus vaccination – Dr. Omane-Boamah Tells Government” Ghanaweb.com 2/7/21).

It is also preposterous for the Ghana Medical School-trained general practitioner to be urging the Akufo-Addo Administration to take its marching orders from the United States of America Government, vis-à-vis the profile or demographics of which citizens are eligible to receive the 17 Million dosages of vaccines that are officially due to arrive in the country in March from Europe. Indeed, if he had been studiously following the global trend of the COVID-19 Pandemic, the rabidly anti-Akufo-Addo critic would have long realized that until the newly elected President Joseph “Joe” Robinette Biden assumed the reins of governance here in the United States of America, in just under three weeks ago, Nana Akufo-Addo’s track record on the handling of the COVID-19 Pandemic far dwarfed the handling of the same problem under the grossly incompetent Republican-sponsored government of Mr. Donald John Trump.

But, of course, Dr. Omane-Boamah’s poorly conceived agenda for administering the COVID vaccines in Ghana only sadly goes to show the global Ghanaian community the totality of the intellectual and professional bankruptcy of the leaders of the National Democratic Congress. Maybe what cynical critics like Dr. Omane-Boamah ought to be asking themselves regards what progressive health policy initiatives the Mahama regime, of which he was a key player, put in place to so pontifically authorize him to lecture the health policy wonks of the Akufo-Addo Administration on how best to handle the so-called China Virus. It is quite certain that the decision by the Director-General of the Ghana Standards Authority and operatives of the Ministry of Health and the Ghana Medical Service to initially exempt certain categories of Ghanaian citizens from the administration of the initial consignment of the COVID vaccines is well informed by practical experiences in countries where the brand of vaccines being imported into the country has been tested with reliable results.

Calling for “interested parties,” such as journalists and Civil Society Organization heads, to constitute an integral part of the COVID-19 vaccine distribution process, instead of professionally trained vanguard health experts, is tantamount to playing the sort of populist politics that the leaders of the National Democratic Congress have become globally infamous for. It also tells us the dire situation into which the nation would have predictably been plunged, if the Ghanaian electorate had made the egregious error of returning the Mahama Looting Brigade to Jubilee House. In some European countries, for example, a remarkable mass of very old people who were administered the COVID-19 vaccines are known to have fared worse than those who had been exempted from the same. In sum, if he were, indeed, the serious Health Policy Planning and Financing Analyst – Insurance Broker? – that he claims to be, Dr. Omane-Boamah would, no doubt, have been well aware of this fact.

But, of course, we are in Ghana where college degrees are generally envisaged to be of far greater significance, for the most part, than established record of practical and professional experience and cutting-edge medical research. Already, the Akufo-Addo-led government of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has more than amply demonstrated that when it comes to the industrial production of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), to combat the uphill battle against the COVID-19 Pandemic, it is indisputably a leader on the African Continent. Now, what Dr. Omane-Boamah and his so-called interested parties of multi-professional and cross-professional Ghanaian leaders need to be talking about is how to make science and technology a vanguard and cutting-edge part of our national development agenda, and not how to score cheap and unproductive political points.

*Visit my blog at: KwameOkoampaAhoofeJr

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

February 8, 2021

E-mail: [email protected]