General News of Thursday, 30 July 2020

Source: www.ghanaweb.com

Military man under investigation for lashing taxi driver over face mask - GAF

The Military officer allegedly flogged the taxi driver for failing to wear a face mask The Military officer allegedly flogged the taxi driver for failing to wear a face mask

The Ghana Armed Forces have launched investigations into occurrences that led to a civilian in the likeness of a taxi driver abused for allegedly failing to observe mandatory Coronavirus health protocols.

A video in circulation on social media sighted by GhanaWeb showed a military man lashing the taxi driver while his colleague, standing just at arm’s length looked on.

The taxi driver who had failed to observe the mandatory directive to wear a face mask in a public place had tied a handkerchief across his nose as a pseudo-facemask.

The soldier sighted in the widely circulated video, sprawled him on the car’s bonnet and gave him a number of strokes before the driver, who could obviously not contain the pain any longer turned in languish.

Director of Public Affairs of the Ghana Armed Forces, Colonel Evans Aggrey-Quashie told GhanaWeb when the site reached out that his outfit has taken cognisance of the incident and initiated investigations into the matter.

In order to increase awareness and strict adherence to health protocols to help reduce the spread of the Coronavirus pandemic, government has passed an L.I making it a crime punishable by law when one fails to observe them.

The penalty for failing to observe the health protocols (wearing face masks) include payment of a 10,000 cedis fine as well as a jail term of up to 10 years.

Since its passing security personnel have been conducting random checkups to ensure that Ghanaians are observing the wearing of face masks in public places.