Presidential Advisor on Health, Dr. Anthony Nsiah-Asare
• Ghana’s land borders remain closed since 2020 due to the coronavirus
• Residents living in border communities say they are experiencing a lot of hardships and want them opened
• Government says the boarders will be opened only when majority of the population is vaccinated
As agitations from border communities in the country mount up for the opening of land borders, the government has said that until a majority of the populace is vaccinated, that hope might not be likely met soon.
Dr. Anthony Nsiah-Asare, the Presidential Advisor on Health, explains that the government is looking into how to quickly contain the novel Coronavirus in the country before any such consideration is made, citinewsroom.com has reported.
He said that as it stands now, the larger part of the population in the country are yet to be inoculated against the pandemic, making it a very dire situation with regards the opening of the borders.
“We are looking at the data, we are looking at the science and everything that is happening. The President is more concerned about the economic devastation brought by the pandemic.
“The way to curb this pandemic, apart from the protocols is to ensure that a lot of people are immunized. Once you get a lot of people vaccinated it means the vulnerable people in the country become less and no amount of importation will cause a devastating effect,” he said.
In the last few weeks, residents of Aflao in the Ketu South constituency in the Volta Region, and those at Elubo in the Jomoro constituency of the Western Region, have been on the streets in protest.
They have been demanding that the government opens the land borders as many of them have their livelihoods tied to the movements of persons and goods across the borders.
This has become necessary because since the novel Coronavirus was first recorded in Ghana in 2020, all land borders have remained shut till now, causing many to complain consistently about how this is affecting their economic well-beings.
Reacting to claims that some persons, albeit this closure of the borders, have been corruptly bypassing the restrictions, Dr. Nsiah-Asare warned that the act be stopped.
“If people are paying and moving illegally I am not aware of it, but if this is true then it is bad and we should all condemn it,” he said.