The Member of Parliament for Dormaa East, Paul Apraku Twum Barimah, has charged the COVID-19 Task Force to begin arresting and prosecuting recalcitrant Ghanaians who continue to flout the President’s directive on the pandemic to serve as deterrent to others.
According to him, the failure of the task force to monitor, arrest and prosecute offenders across the country would encourage many people to hold funeral services and recreational activities beyond the 2 hours giving by the president, Nana Akufo Addo in his state of the nation address last month.
“If we fail to strictly adhere to the laid down rules and COVID 19 protocols, the nation is likely to experience continuous increases in the COVID cases. COVID 19 is now spreading beyond imagination and there is a need to tackle it head on. Strictly adhering to the protocol is key and there ought to be a strict enforcement to help reduce the increasing rate”.
He continued that “Over the weekend I visited some places and I was shocked to realise that many people had organised events beyond the two hour mark. In addition to that most people were not wearing the nose masks, people were shaking hands and hugging each other. This is not good for us. I think the COVID 19 taskforce ought to be proactive and punish people who flout the law, that we can make progress and reduce the rate of COVID 19 infections”.
President Akufo-Addo last month issued directives stating that all funeral should not exceed two hours and only family members should be allowed to attend. The directive came in as the nation is grappling with surging cases of Covid-19 which has surpassed 100,000.
President Akufo-Addo said that all ceremonies, including funerals, weddings and other custom ceremonies should not exceed 2hours. This he said would reduce the time frame with which individuals could be in contact thus reducing the infection rates in such gatherings.
The President further added that the after-party celebration in weddings were banned till further notice and weddings could only last at most two hours and were confined among family members only.
He also directed that all funeral gatherings should be conducted in an open space and under strict adherence to the Covid-19 regulations.
Despite the directive, Ghanaians continue to flout the rules based on the fact that the rules have been relax by the tax force.
But the Dormaa East MP insisted that if people are penalized for flouting the directives, it will serve as a deterrent to others who may want to engage on the same actions.
We need to stop this virus before it spreads further, we cannot survive it, he warned.
