The Minister (Left) recieves a box of item from Mr Wali (right) with branded items on display
The Ministry of Inner Cities and Zongo Development has through its agency, the Zongo Development Fund (ZoFD) initiated a project to distribute free hygiene items to some 40,000 households in the inner cities and Zongo communities across the country.
The agency has so far taken delivery of some 36,500 locally manufactured hygiene items and 10,000 pieces of face masks out of an expected 200,000 pieces of the former and a million of the latter to be distributed within a three-month period.
The first delivered consignment of hygiene items consisted of 20,000 liquid soaps and 16,500 hand sanitizers.
The sector minister, Dr Mustapha Hamid, on Tuesday launched the ZoFD branded products which were produced by Focus Women Network, an entrepreneurship organization for Zongo women.
He remarked that inner cities and Zongo communities, which are undoubtedly the most vulnerable, would be most negatively impacted by the ravages of COVID-19 and therefore, more attention was needed to shield them.
The current situation of most inner cities and Zongo communities with regard to poor social distancing and congestion, he said, should encourage Ghanaians to take spatial planning seriously.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of ZoFD, Arafat Sulemana Abdulai, in an interview disclosed that due procurement procedures were followed in selecting an indigenous group to produce the products.
“In all we had about four different groups who showed interest and they were shortlisted. When we looked at the proposals based on cost and value we decided to go with this one (Focus Women Network),” he said.
The Ghana Islamic Society for Education and Reformation, a non-governmental organization, used the occasion to present 200 boxes of food items to the fund for onward distribution to vulnerable persons in the Zongo communities.
The society had previously donated food items during the lockdown to the Madina Zongo community in Accra and the Ayawaso West Municipal Assembly.
Safwan Wali, president of the society in his remarks described the gesture as a “very humble contribution” towards the good effort of government and also a way of showing sympathy to citizens who were hardly hit by the movement-restricting lockdown which was lifted on Monday.
The unprecedented nature of the pandemic, he said, would require all the cooperation and positive responses from citizens to overcome the challenge.
By Issah Mohammed