220 Health professionals have petitioned the chair of the Electoral Commission of Ghana (ECG), Mrs. Jean Mensa to consider the health risks the new voters register exercise could bring in such COVID-19 period where Ghana’s mortality rate keeps increasing.

In a second open letter addressed to the EC, the group “provided multiple reasons why massing up people for the purpose of getting onto the electoral roll could lead to an increase in the infection rates and the number of deaths from the much-dreaded COVID-19.”

 

 

Ghana as of Sunday, July 5, 2020, had recorded 20,085 cases of coronavirus with 122 deaths. 14, 870 discoveries have been verified as active cases stood at 5,093.

 

 

Among reasons on why the exercise needs to be halted was constituents’ failure to adhere to the public health protocols and precautionary measures against the novel disease." They cited Carlos Ahenkorah's visit to a registration center in his constituency before his period of self-isolation completed after testing positive for coronavirus, a breach of the Nation’s protocols on COVID-19, and an act of disrepute towards Ghanaians. 

According to the group, the exercise is “inimical to our fight against the pandemic and threatens to eliminate whatever successes we have chalked so far.”

The Health professionals also notified the President, Nana Akufo-Addo on how “isolation and holding centers have been stretched beyond limits by our increasing case count” and several hundreds of healthcare workers been exposed to the virus.

 

READ ALSO:

Over 1.8 Million Ghanaians registered in 5 Days – EC

 

They presented that either the government “pause the mass registration, figure out safer ways of carrying it out and prevent Ghana from suffering potentially thousands of deaths or continue with the exercise in this form and be remembered by posterity as a leader who supervised an exercise that allowed for the loss of multiple lives.”

 

Below is the full statement;