A Security Consultant Adib Saani has admonished government to be transparent and accountable about the true facts on COVID-19, and thus communicate it properly to the public since it is the number one security threat facing countries all over the world.

He said this in an interview with Johnnie Hughes on the New Day show on TV3, Monday, April 26.

Mr. Saani was speaking on the heels of the recent report of high COVID-19 recorded registered at the Kotoka International Airport and the minority’s concerns to government to restrict entry to travellers from countries with high COVID-19 cases into Ghana.

He said “In Ghana’s case, I think from day one, the way we managed the Airport testing regime is what is accounting for this, to some extent, I wouldn’t say entirely but to a very large extent. There is no accountability and it’s as a result of the lack of transparency in that process, for instance, at the latter part of last year, the records that I have available to me proves that over 240,000 people came into the country.

“There were concerns about the quality of the tests, on the back of the funny, so to speak, information we received with respect to the procurement process and all that, it was quite disturbing. And so if there’s no transparency, if there’s no accountability, what do you expect?”.

“Because COVID-19 is still a potent danger, I think about three weeks ago, the US came out with its annual threat assessment that give feedback on the state of security in the country within the past year and the biggest threat to the security of the United States is COVID-19, even though they had other security threats such as North Korea, Iran and Russia that resulted in a sweeping sanction against that country.”

He further stated that “the people have a right to know, let us forget about mass hysteria, once you let the people know the true facts of the matter, they’d also take progressive, practical steps to ensure their own safety. But when things are shrouded in secrecy, to the extent that you’d have 1,2,3 minister-designates going before the appointment committee and acting like, excuse me to say, they are from another planet and behaving like they don’t have any information about the procurement processes and all that.

“So I think that largely this is as a result of the lack of accountability and for me, I’m not surprised whatsoever, we can only expect the worst, unfortunately”.