COVID-19: STRANEK-Africa Wants Parliament To Summon Health Minister On State Of Medical Reserve

Strategic Thinkers Network-Africa (STRANEK-Africa) has appealed to Parliament to summon the Health Minister, Kwaku Agyeman Manu on the state of Ghana’s medical reserve and supplies center in the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic.

The Central Medical Store located in Tema in January 2014 caught fire, leading to the destruction of over GH¢200 million worth of medical supplies.

Subsequently, the Ministry of Health approved the reconstruction of the ultra-modern facility at the cost of GH¢8 million by NMS Infrastructure Limited, a British-owned construction firm. To date, however, the state of the medical reserve and supplies center remains unknown.

In a statement at a time where Ghana could really use supplies from the medical center to fight the Coronavirus, STRANEK-Africa insists the Health Minister must be dragged to parliament to give an update on the state of the medical store.

“STRANEK-Africa makes a passionate call on Parliament of Ghana to summon the Minister of Health to present progress on the state of Ghana’s medical reserve and supplies in the wake of this Covid-19 pandemic. This will help us as a country in assessing our capacity in dealing with this outbreak”, the statement signed by Emmanuel Osei who is the Director of Policy and Political Affairs for the policy think thank said.

Meanwhile, the group has commended the government for “initiating steps to bring together all locally manufacturing pharmaceutical companies to harness their capacities to produce locally what we need in case we are confronted with the Italy experience. We are hopeful that government will walk its talk in supporting them financially”.

The statement from STRANEK-Africa concludes, “Government of Ghana should as well bring on board, local companies that can produce ventilators in support of the fight against COVID-19 just as it is being done in the United Kingdom, the United States of America among other countries”.