COVID-19 DIRECTIVES; HON. TANGOBA READIES HER REGION

The Upper East Regional Minister Hon. Tangoba Abayage on Monday, gave a briefing to media personnel selected from across the region regarding the region’s readiness to comply with the directives issued by President Nana Addo on Sunday night on the steady rise of COVID-19 cases in Ghana.

Hon. Tangoba At The Press Briefing

Hon. Tangoba told the media that she had just presided over an emergency meeting of the Regional Security Council [REGSEC] which she convened following the President’s “sweeping directives” last night. She revealed that the meeting also involved all the Municipal and District Chief Executives [MDCEs], Regional Director of Health Services and the Regional Environmental Sanitation Officer. She said the meeting discussed some critical issues bothering the COVID-19 pandemic and the responsibility of state actors to help curb the spread.

According to the Regional Minister, some key decisions had been arrived at by close of proceedings and one was that, each MDCE is tasked to hold a district/municipal security council meeting which shall also include the traditional and religious authorities in the area in order to assists in the effective implementation of decisions taken at the regional level. She added that an agreement had also been reached for the Assemblies to resource all their respective district information offices to undertake intensive public education in the communities and at the known market squares on the pandemic. Focus of the messages among other essential areas, will be to emphasise the need for personal hygiene and healthy living.

Furthermore, the Regional Minister stated that country was no long in ordinary times and that during times like this, the media has often been very important ally. She therefore directed the Regional Health Directorate to prepare very-easy-to-comprehend awareness and preventive message for mass public education while she appealed passionately to the media to allot quality free airtime for such public education.

 

Some REGSEC Members & MDCEs In The Meeting Before the briefing

In her brief, it also came to light that the region’s two major prison facilities in Navrongo and in Bawku shall henceforth not accept any visitors within the next 30 days while security operatives at various entry points into the region and for that matter, Ghana have been instructed to be very vigilant and on the alert at every material moment. This instruction she observed was to ensure that new case were imported into the country as every effort was in motion to contain the in-country cases, now six on the record. In this direction, she gave assurance that the Ghana Health Service had deployed adequate staff to beef up the monitoring of vital signs of travelers and to flag any suspected cases for containment and treatment.

Meanwhile she revealed that she got an earlier brief from the Regional Environmental Sanitation Officer that the directorate was already on the field and market centres educating the populace about the urgent need for regular hand washing under running water and to use hand sanitizers and ashes, where it became too expensive or impossible to get the orthodox sanitizers.

Hon. Tangoba called on the region’s people not to panic while she assured that, the region was poised to use every state machinery and manpower to ensure that the simple and strict directives issued by the President were followed to the letter. She said it was refreshing that the National Chief Imam was scheduled to hold a press conference later in the day to whip all the religious in line and that, similar statements were to be made by the Christian leadership so as to ensure that regular worship congregations were halted immediately until normalcy was restored.

Mentioning a few examples to show that any planned public gatherings were prohibited and which should be followed by all, she noted that the President himself was scheduled to the region on 22^nd March, 2020 for a national assignment and which has since been postponed. Additionally, the annual Zekula Festival by the Bissas was marked for 11^th April 2020, but that too has been put on hold till further note.

Hon. Tangoba had some words of encouragement and assurance for the residents of Upper East; she told them “let us be vigilant, let us be each other’s keeper, let us be cautious but do not panic, and certainly, lets always remember to wash our hands with soap under running water”.

She charged the MDCEs to hold very productive deliberations with their traditional leaders and the Islamic leadership such as the Imams to strictly observe the 25 –man presence at funerals in order to avoid the massing up of people.

She also observed that an area of possible spread of COVID-19 should it unfortunately strike in the region, was the marketplace and thus appealed to market women to observe maximum precaution in their handling of cash and commodities as the surfaces of these could easily be conveyor belts.