Kojo Oppong Nkrumah
The government, barring any unforeseen circumstances, will formally announce today the rollout of the vaccination programme for the country, Information Minister-designate, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, has said.
So far the government said it had ordered about 355,000 AstraZeneca vaccines from Europe and it was expected to be available in the country by the middle of March this year to cover about 40 million Ghanaians.
The nominee, taking his turn at the public vetting of the Appointments Committee of Parliament yesterday, indicated that the rollout programme would provide all the details to inform Ghanaians ahead of the vaccination exercise.
Mr. Nkrumah also disclosed that the Covid-19 Response Programme was escalated from the Ministry of Health to a presidential taskforce level.
“The presidential taskforce was the one that asked the Ghana Airport Company Limited to explore options by which it could find an acceptable instant testing mechanism at the airport which would allow the airport to be reopened.”
According to him, “the Ghana Airport Company Limited then proceeded to do so, and reported back to the presidential taskforce that they have been able to come up with an option and that option will allow people to be tested within 15 minutes at the airport.”
“Mr. Chairman, I have observed your committee’s hearing and seen a question put to other ministers. Respectfully, if I may suggest, I think that the most appropriate person will be the Minister for Transport under whom the Ghana Airport Company Limited operates.”
“It is his agency that will be best-cease to provide all the details on that matter,” he suggested.
Safety of Journalists
On the safety of journalists, the Information Minister-designate said a coordinated mechanism was designed by his ministry in collaboration with the Ghana Journalists Association, Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association and National Media Commission (NMC).
He noted that the framework was explored and taken to Cabinet, which gave approval for it, indicating that the mechanism was given to the NMC to implement.
“And then the Ministry of Information has provided NMC with the resources and that they are in the processes of implementing this coordinated mechanism so that when a journalist says that he has been attacked they can do a proper investigation and validate whether it is a false story, a coincidence or actually true,” Mr. Nkrumah pointed out, and added that “they can also help us to do proper follow up, for example in the case of Ahmed Sualley, a very terrible incident that grieves our hearts.”
By Ernest Kofi Adu