The Minister for Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, has asked Ghanaians not to underestimate the successes the country had chalked in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The advice of the task force, the work of the media and the compliance of a good number of Ghanaians has brought the pandemic under control,” he said, adding that the government was working to fully open up the Ghanaian economy after the entire populace had been vaccinated against Covid-19.
“Government will be doing its bit we are hoping, and calling on citizens to do their bit, but that means that you, our colleagues in the media, will also have to keep the public conversation in line with what is ongoing, and remind the public that we are not in ordinary times,” he said.
Mr Oppong Nkrumah, who is also the Member of Parliament for the Ofoase-Ayirebi Constituency, made the call on Saturday, when he addressed journalists at Wa as part of his three-day tour of the North East, Upper East, Savannah, Upper West and Northern regions.
The tour was intended to deepen the Information Ministry’s relationship with journalists across the Regions.
He appealed to the media to continuously remind members of the public not to lose sight of the fact that Covid-19 had hit businesses, and that we are not in normal times.
“In Christmas, when we all got a bit complacent and let our guard down, you saw what happened in the New Year. All of us got complacent; it is a shared responsibility. Now that the numbers are down, we should not get comfortable and complacent the second time.
“If we do, we may not be able to survive a third wave like we survived the first two. So, as we speak of Covid-19, let us also continue to remind our audiences that it is important to continue to observe the preventive etiquettes so that we don’t suffer a third wave,” Mr Nkrumah said.
The Minister further told the journalists that most people took it for granted that things were normal, but the government had to work hard to gradually improve the status of the economy.
“If you have studied the trajectory of where we started from in 2017, and how gradually the Ghanaian economy has improved, and saw what Covid-19 did to us in 2020, you would appreciate that the disease has hit the Ghanaian economy and, indeed, the African and the global economy.”
Mr. Nkrumah urged the media to remind the public that the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic greatly affected activities in the country, and that they needed to take a second look at some of the regular things they have been asking for.
“That is why government has had to resort to introducing some revenue measures and cutting some expenses. So it cannot be business as usual, it is a time that calls for all of us to recognise the times in which we are, and to respond appropriately.”
Musah Umar Farouq, Wa
The post Don’t under estimate success of economy in the midst of covid-19 appeared first on The Chronicle Online.
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