Kwame Asuah Takyi – GIS Boss
There is a worrying disregard for the presidential Covid-19 directives and it is worrying.
Smuggling of human beings and goods across our frontiers has not abated; that is not to say the smugglers are finding the enterprise easy. Although smuggling is done on the blind side of immigration officers, we would have thought that considering the rather unusual times in which we find ourselves, the policing of the frontiers would be heightened.
This is an issue which our security managers should tackle with all their hearts and might.
National security operatives should be able to do more intelligence work to determine how the frontiers are breached by smugglers, especially the connivance of state agents. These are not times for relaxing the security of our borders.
Another issue of grave concern is the disregard for the use of face mask in Accra and other places with cases of Covid-19.
When the President entreated his compatriots to use face masks as a protective measure, we did not agree with his approach because most Ghanaians would not comply with pleas.
We would rather the President applies the necessary legislation to empower security personnel to arrest those who ignore the directive to use face masks because that is the language we understand well.
Disregarding the use of face masks will endanger the lives of the stubborn persons and others hence the need for coercion. When dealing with recalcitrant persons, especially in the case of a medical emergency as we find ourselves in, cracking the whip should not be condemned.
It would appear that many Ghanaians do not appreciate the level of seriousness of the disease which has afflicted the world hence the scary attitude of being noticeable in especially the streets of Accra and Kumasi.
We have information that some Imams are defying not only the directives from the state but also the National Chief Imam’s that congregational prayers be suspended even as Muslims undertake the annual Ramadan fasting. Such clerics regardless of their standing in society must be arrested and prosecuted.
Besides forcing people to use face masks, they should also be compelled to use them properly. Many use face masks simply to create a semblance of complying with the directive.
This is the reason why some people just hang the mask around their necks, or in a manner which is not protective of their noses and mouths.
The lackadaisical use or otherwise of the face mask should be reversed through education, and those persistently defying the standards punished. Critical situations under pandemic circumstances call for strictness and sternness.
We should be thankful to God that the stubborn virus is not exhibiting the level of aggressiveness it is unleashing in Europe and the other parts of the world, otherwise we would have been writing different stories.