- Plans to deploy security to enforce compliance
The fight to curtail the spread of COVID-19 in the country has been a daunting task with Ghana’s case count now around 27, 060 with about 145 persons losing their lives though some 23,044 has recovered.
Government through the Ghana Health Service, Ministry of Health and other related authorities, has outlined COVID-19 preventive protocols which include compulsory wearing of facemask, regular washing and sanitising of hands, among others, however a large proportion of citizenry has always been found wanting in compliance to these protocols.
The Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) of La Dade-Kotopon Municipal Assembly, Solomon Kotey-Nikoi and the MCE for Ledzokuku Municipal Assembly, Mrs Evelyn Twum-Gyamrah, have bemoaned the non-adherence to the covid-19 protocols especially the compulsory wearing of facemask in their respective jurisdiction among the local community members.
Mr. Kotey-Nikoi, speaking to the media on the side-lines of the nationwide markets disinfection exercise in his assembly, narrated that his office procured and distributed over 20,000 facemasks to the local people but unfortunately wearing them has not been part of their culture from beginning and so people are finding it challenging to use them though it is compulsory.
He therefore emphasised that the assembly has put together a team of security service personnel who will be deployed very soon into the communities to ensure that people comply with the directive.
“From the initial stages they were complaining that they were not having the nose masks and other PPE so, we placed Veronica buckets, soaps and hand sanitizers in all public places, and also went ahead to distribute about 20,000 pieces of facemasks.
Even as we are moving around with the disinfection team, we had some of the masks with us and we were distributing to people who were not wearing,” he said.
Commenting on the disinfection exercise taking place at the markets, lorry stations and public places in his municipality, he expressed satisfaction with the services of Zoomlion and also indicated that the La Dade-Kotopon Municipality is performing well in terms of covid-19 recoveries.
“In our municipality, we had about 144 patients in the isolation centre at El-Walk Stadium, but right now, we have 107 recoveries, 3 in critical condition and the rest are also doing well,” he said.
Mrs. Evelyn Twum-Gyamrah, on her part, stated that the local people at Teshi-Maami especially are not complying with the wearing of the facemask though the assembly had distributed masks to them on three different occasions.
“I have distributed nose masks about three times in the Teshi township but I think they are ignorant of wearing the nose mask and so we are looking at more sensitisation and also enforcing the laws so that ones they see their relatives and neighbours being punished, they will adhere to the protocols,” she said.
She was also content with how the disinfection of the markets exercise was carried out successfully without any hitches as other municipalities are experiencing, saying, the assembly did a comprehensive sensitisation and information dissemination which went down well with all the market women.
