The Ho Municipal Assembly faces an uphill task in ensuring strict compliance with the President’s directive on the wearing of nose masks across the country in an effort to mitigate the spread of the novel COVID-19 disease. Most residents in the regional capital, Ho, despite an inundation of education and information on COVID-19, still operate and move about without a nose mask in gleeful disregard of the Ghana Health Service’s safety protocols on the virus.
Taxi drivers and market women form a larger section of the worst offenders who also lack the responsibility to ensure that passengers and customers alike adhere to these directives.
The Ho Municipal Chief Executive, Mr Prosper Pi-Bansah, said his outfit had distributed nose masks to market women and drivers to ensure smooth adherence to the directives.
“We have distributed 600 to market women and 300 to the drivers.
I cannot tell why they are still not making use of the masks,” he lamented.
Nose masks uncomfortable
Most traders at the Ho market who spoke to the Daily Graphic, however, complained that the masks were uncomfortable and made breathing difficult.
The traders, mostly women, have also disregarded the social distancing protocol and continued to sell their products in the tightly packed market.
Some of the traders the paper spoke to did not believe in the existence of the virus. Checks by the Daily Graphic suggested that the low number of cases recorded in Ho could be a contributory factor to reasons why people were not worried about the virus. So far the cases in Ho remain at three.
Low level enforcement
Although environmental health officers have been tasked by the Ho Municipal Assembly to ensure compliance to the directives, their efforts have not been encouraging.
The level of enforcement is non-existent unlike Accra where the police are visibly seen ensuring that drivers and passengers in commercial vehicles use nose masks and observe social distancing.
Mr Pi-Bansah said new strategies will be drawn to collaborate with the security agencies to ensure strict enforcement.
However, the ‘No Face Masks, No Entry’ directive is being religiously followed with cautionary notices displayed at the entrance of most shopping centres, offices and banks.
Asogli State
Meanwhile, the President of the Asogli State Council, Togbe Afede XIV, has urged residents in the Volta Region to seriously adhere to the COVID-19 safety protocols in the midst of increasing confirmed cases of the virus in the region and Ghana at large.
In a statement copied to the Daily Graphic, the Agbogbomefia said the pandemic was of grave concern hence the need not to be slack in keeping to the protocols.
Togbe Afede reminded residents that the disease was unrelenting and advised that the lifting of the Kumasi and Accra lockdowns should not be viewed as a leeway to take the protocols for granted. “We are not out of the woods yet. COVID-19 is still here,” it added.
He, therefore, called for strict adherence to the same preventive measures that the government and health experts have been preaching.
“Avoid congregating because it will increase the risk of contracting the killer disease. Our funerals, traditional and other rites must be limited to very few people, as advised by the President of the Republic.
“Adhere to the social distancing protocol within our communities and at the workplace, take personal hygiene seriously, wash your hands regularly and avoid touching your faces.
We should have disposal tissue paper on us always, and cover our mouths when sneezing or coughing,” the statement added.
The Agbogbomefia also encouraged residents to wear their nose masks to ensure the covering of noses and mouths, especially at crowded places, including markets and vehicles and called for collaborative efforts between border security and citizens in enforcing the closure of the borders as directed by the President.
<<Print>>