News:
September 29, 2014
Member of Parliament for Manhyia South, Dr Mathew Opoku Prempeh has strongly kicked against the setting up of an Ebola Emergency Response Centre in Ghana by the United Nations (UN).
According to him, though Ghana is not contributing any funds to the establishment of the centre, monies to be spent on setting up the office structures in Accra would have been better served if it were used to fight the dreaded disease in the other affected African countries.
He said the UN instead of using these funds in Ghana, could have built another centre in addition to the one set up by the U.S. A in Liberia or better still set up a new office in Sierra Leone to coordinate affairs and make the fight against the disease more effective.
“There are already people in Liberia working to fight Ebola, we don’t need to spend monies on another one fifty people shuttling from Ghana to these countries, the cost of their plane fares and other feeding cost would have been put to good use. When there is a war in a country, the UN moves into the said country to intervene but does not operate from a distant country, they must move swiftly into the Ebola affected countries” Hon. Dr Opoku Prempeh said.
The United Nation Mission on Ebola Emergency Response is to soon establish logistics centre in Accra, where about two hundred and fifty UN personnel will be deployed, out of which one hundred will be operating from Ghana.
The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that 5,843 cases and 2,803 deaths have been reported in the current outbreaks by the Ministries of Health in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone which are the worst affected countries in Africa.
Speaking on Asempa FM’s current affairs programme, “Eko sii sen” Monday, Hon. Mathew Opoku Prempeh who is a medical Doctor by profession explained further that his opposition to the establishment of the centre stems from the fact that Ghana possibly risks recording its first case from the several travels of these 150 UN personnel from Ghana to the affected countries as they are prone to contracting the disease.
He expressed surprise that Parliament which is the representative body of the citizenry was not consulted by the government before committing Ghana to such an international transaction.
“Parliament has not even discussed the modalities of this deal and yet the government has gone ahead to commit Ghana without the representatives of the people having an input into the matter, this is not right” Dr Opoku Prempeh bemoaned.
Ghanamps.gov.gh