Covid-19 Food Distribution Failed Because Chiefs, Opinion Leaders were not Involved – Omane Boamah

Former Minister for Communications, Dr Edward Omane Boamah, has urged the Akufo-Addo government to involve community leaders in its efforts to defeat the covid-19 pandemic in Ghana.

According to him, chiefs and community heads can play a significant role in mobilizing the people to support government’s initiatives in tackling the disease.

Speaking in an interview on Accra-based Joy FM on Monday, the former minister noted that, the government failed in bringing community leaders on board to support its exercise in distributing food to the underprivileged during lockdown.

In the early part of April, the government embarked on an exercise to provide food for underprivileged persons in parts of the country that were under lockdown.

However, a few days into the exercise, the government was accused of distributing the food and other relief items on a partisan basis – choosing members of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) over non-members. Government has since denied that claim.

Commenting generally on the government’s food distribution exercise, Dr Omane Boamah said the controversies that saddled the initiative, could have been prevented had community leaders been involved.

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“Where I think government has not done too well is in terms of brining on board community leaders, assemblymen and women to assist..And perhaps we lost an opportunity during the distribution of food and relief items during the lockdown phase.

“If they had been included, in the distribution of food and all, they may have also gathered a lot more social capital within the community that ‘even when we were hungry, it was this chief, this assemblymen who together with the government brought us food so let’s listen to him, if he says that we should subject ourselves to the team that is coming round to test us’,” he added.

He said with community spread setting in, the government would have to deepen its engagement with community leaders to ensure that residents in a given area have confidence in contacting tracing and testing efforts.