President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has replied the demonstrators at Elubo and other border towns in the country against the continued closure of land borders.
According to the President, there are horrendous set of problems that are associated with the reopening of the borders.
He mentioned that it comes with huge risk and challenges in controlling human contacts.
He indicated that until health experts are certain that reopening of land borders will not pose problems for the country as far as the COVID 19 pandemic is concerned, it is not advisable to do so now.
President Akufo-Addo explained that the country is still not out of the woods yet with regards to the Covid-19 pandemic, consequently, reopening land borders would come with a huge risk and associated challenges.
This includes, controlling human contacts, testing, putting in place health measures among others.
Recently, there were demonstrations over the continuous closure of Elubo and Aflao borders.
The demonstrators, Concerned Youth in the Jomoro Municipality in the Western region petitioned President Akufo-Addo to as a matter of urgency, reopen the land borders in the country particularly the Elubo border.
The petition issued and signed by the Assembly Man for Elubo-West Electoral Area, Nana Frendo Bosso Kwasi and copied to the Ghana Immigration Service, the Jomoro Municipal Assembly, office of the Member of Parliament, Bureau of National Investigations and the media among other stakeholders stated that the prolonged closure of land borders had caused businesses to collapse, because all businesses in the border towns were rooted in these closed borders.
According to them, “businessmen and women in Elubo were not able to repay their loans due to drastically reduced patronage of goods and services coupled with expired goods,” which has resulted in many of them vacating the border communities in order to evade arrest in respect of loan repayment.
“The situation, has dangerous ramifications on a developing country like Ghana. The closure of our land borders especially that of Elubo, is detrimental to the very human health we are trying to protect. Your Excellency, people troop in and out of Ghana via Elubo through unapproved routes without getting tested for COVID-19”.
“This unequivocally defeats the purpose for which the borders were closed initially,” they claimed.
The youth further noted that “Ghanaian cocoa farmers whose farms were on Ivorian soil were no longer able to work on their farms, thereby causing a huge financial loss to both farmers and government with all economic activities in border communities completely grounded to a halt and life in same communities completely dead”.
They have therefore suggested that an antigen testing regime be instituted at the land borders just as instituted at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) to allow for free movement of persons.
However, speaking during a Skky Power Takoradi radio interview as part of his Western Regional tour, President Akufo-Addo said Ghana was named as one of the best countries as far as management of Covid-19 was concerned, because of some of the extensive measures taken, such as closing of borders
According to him, “The land borders pose a different kind of problem. You have got unauthorised ways of coming into the country, controlling that is still difficult. It is doubtful the system of testing at the borders can be as rigorous as they are at Kotoka.”
“There are lots of our people who are doing this coming and going on a daily basis [at land borders], how are we going to test people? Until we are sure that we have strong control over it, we need to be careful about our contacts.
“Are you going to insist everyone who comes [through the border and back] is vaccinated? Are you going to persist to enforce that? How many of our people have we been able to vaccinate,” he quizzed.
The President therefore appealed to the demonstrators to exercise patience, since the pandemic has had adverse effects not just on them but many people across the country indicating that until the country is able to eradicate issues that could come as a result of reopening the border, it is unsafe to keep them opened.
Somewhere in March 2020 the President announced the closure of the borders as part of measures to help curb the spread of the Covid-19 virus as it is over a year and the borders are still closed due to the continue lingering of the coronavirus pandemic.
By Vincent Kubi