COVID-19: Poor Strategy Adopted By Nana Addo—George Kwaku Yeboah

Mr. George Kwaku Yeboah, a member of the Volta NDC communications team has complained bitterly about the poor nature President Nana Addo is handling issues of COVID-19 in the country.

His full statement below

As a country, it is important we are all critical about proactive measures to put in place in order to stop the spread of COVID-19.

It is, therefore, worrying the way President Nana Addo is not doing things right at this critical moment.

How should Nana Addo risk the lives of our security officers and their families like that?

How on earth could a government deploy over 8,000 officers to enforce the presidential restriction on movement, without adequate personal protection equipment, and only now be asking them to self-isolate from their families and colleagues after 25 days?

It must be noted that the same security officers returned to their families every single day after their duty.

We all saw on television and social media how most of them were ill-equipped through the period of the partial lockdown.

The President lifted the restriction on movement four (4) clear days ago, and the security officers returned to normal duty.

We're looking at roughly a total of 25 days since they were deployed. Let's not forget that they returned home after every single shift.

The kind of accommodation that our security officers and their families live in, is also no secret to any of us. Our security officers live in the most constrained operational housing units in our barracks all over Ghana.

It is scandalous for any person not to know this. I grew up between two barracks (Airforce, Burma Camp and Police rented quarters, Kokomlemle, Accra). I'm no stranger to the living conditions of our servicemen and women.

Trying to make meaning of the directive of the IGP, yesterday, now asking all the 8,000 security personnel to self-isolate, got me seriously thinking.

Two things readily came to mind. I visualised how impossible that was going to be for many of them, knowing their living conditions.

The other is, how very late this directive has come. The same officers have returned home to live with their families and other colleagues over the 21 days of the restriction on movement and since it was lifted four days ago.

With all the high-powered planning that went into the decisions, as we are told by government communicators on a daily basis, did this not cross the mind of anybody?

From my little layman's observation, there seems to be the poverty of proactiveness in most of the decisions so far. I can mention the shambolic and woefully belated food distribution to vulnerable groups by government, 8 days into the lockdown.

The mode and manner of the distribution are bereft of any serious planning. The story of the "Kayayei", needs no telling. This feeds directly into my concern for this late directive for officers to self-isolate.

It is important to state that President Nana Addo, must be on top of his job to make sure only the best of decisions are taken toward fighting the spread of COVID-19 in Ghana.