The Minister of Communications, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful has advised Ghanaians to put a stop to panic buying, in anticipation of a potential lockdown of the country amid fighting against the deadly Coronavirus outbreak.

According to the Communication Minister, panic buying is the hastened increase in prices of goods and services following the outbreak of the disease in the country added that panic buying in bulk is also leading to an abrupt shortage of goods on the market.

She, therefore, admonished the market women to abstain from the unreasonable increases in the prices of essential products such as hand sanitizers and soaps in these trying times.

She noted that the practice puts the whole country at risk since people who cannot afford the high price of goods will only wait to get infested and in turn spread the disease among others.

“The problem is if you shoot the price of these commodities up and the public is not able to afford them, the virus will still be circulating with us and in the process of trying to be wise or greedy, you will end up affecting yourself with the virus because your neighbour couldn’t afford to buy disinfectants that will keep them clean,” Mrs Owusu-Ekuful said further.

Moreover, she entreated the market women to also prevent customers from touching the products they sell before buying them.

“If we allow our customers to touch all our goods before they buy one out of them, it is a very effective way of spreading the disease. Therefore, I entreat all of us to be very cautious, especially fish sellers who allow their customers to lick the mouth of the fish before buying them; they should be very careful,” she stressed.

To conclude with, Ursula Owusu urged the public to refrain from the rush in buying goods for hoarding, noting that the backlash of such actions may be more awful than the global occurrences.

Deputy Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Kwasi Boateng Adjei, noted that all market centres in Koforidua will soon be closed for fumigation works as part of the national disinfection exercise to help curb the deadly pandemic virus.

As part of the event, hand sanitizers liquid soaps, tissues, Veronica buckets and stand, among others were presented to the market women as well as to all Regional Coordinating Council for distribution to the 33 districts in the region.