The President of Ghana Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo has announced additional measures to improve Ghana’s response and management of COVID-19 cases.
In his 19 address on the pandemic, the President made two major announcements; the opening of 100 bed Infectious Disease Centre in the coming days and the extension of tax incentives for front line health workers till the end of the year.
As concerning the opening of 100 bed Infectious Disease Centre the president said that despite the number of hospitalized covid-19 victims being low, it is imperative that the country provides adequate care for the patients. “In as much as our hospitalization rates are very low, care for the sick and the provision of treatment remain an important aspect of our strategy. To this end, the one hundred-bed Ghana Infectious Diseases Centre, located at the Ga East Hospital, will be opened in the next few days, under the management of the Ghana Health Service,” he hinted.
He added that the government has made moves to procure more health equipment and PPEs to enhance healthcare delivery in the country.
“The provision of adequate medicines, equipment, and personal protective equipment to enable health workers to attend to home-based patients has also been guaranteed.”
In a bid to enhance contact tracing measures, the president says it has instructed the release of vehicles and other logistics.
“I have instructed the release of additional logistics, including vehicles, to the Ghana Health Service in order to help beef up contact tracing, and the supervision and monitoring of asymptomatic cases being managed from home…We are also employing the use of technology to augment our contact tracing efforts, as well as the supervision and monitoring of home care cases,” he added.
The Centres to be managed by Ghana health services is expected to help the country fight against the pandemic
Concerning the tax incentives he said the extension will cover the months of October, November, and December. “I am happy to announce that the incentive package for health workers has been extended to the end of the year. This means that all health workers will pay no income taxes for the months of October, November, and December.”
Also, they will continue to receive the 50% per cent allowance of their basic salary till the end of the year.
“Again, all frontline health workers, as defined by the Ministry of Health, will continue to receive the additional allowance of fifty per cent (50%) of their basic salary per month, for the months of October, November and December.”
He said the government is trying to mitigate against the effects of the pandemic, by putting in place a number of measures to cushion ordinary Ghanaians and businesses.
“Government has extended the policy of free access to water for all households across the country until December, as well as fully absorbing electricity bills for one million active lifeline customers for the same period. The Communication Service Tax has also been reduced from nine per cent to five per cent, effective September 2020”, he added,
Elsewhere the Ghanian president called for the strict respect of barrier measures during up coming campaign for election. This call was addressed to leaders of the various political parties.
“Fellow Ghanaians, with a month to the conduct of the 7th December presidential and parliamentary elections, there would, obviously, be an intensification of political party activities in all parts of the country, with its accompanying human contact. Nevertheless, I encourage political party leaders and supporters, at the very at least, to wear the mask at all times at these gatherings”
