General News of Wednesday, 29 April 2020

Source: peacefmonline.com

Poor handling of food distribution forced Akufo-Addo to lift coronavirus lockdown - Gen. Mosquito

Johnson Asiedu Nketia, General Secretary of NDC Johnson Asiedu Nketia, General Secretary of NDC

General Secretary of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Johnson Kwadwo Asiedu Nketia says President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo failed woefully in the distribution of food to the needy and vulnerable in the lockdown areas leading to the lifting of the imposition.

According to him, President Akufo-Addo didn’t lift the lockdown out of science and data but rather based on the fear that people will soon hit the streets to look for food to eat due to poor handling of the food distribution.

Speaking on Okay FM’s 'Ade Akye Abia' Morning Show, General Mosquito as popularly called said that the failure of the Akufo-Addo government to evenly distribute food to the needy in the society confirmed his earlier statement that the approach of the government was wrong.

He said per the implementation strategy of the government, those who were strong formed the queue and took the food whenever the officials went around distributing, leaving majority of the poor people without food to eat.

He suggested that the Akufo-Addo government should have used the decentralised structures by employing the Unit Committee and Assembly Members to do the distribution as that would have made the work effective and easy for the government.

“We have Unit Committee and Assembly Members and so the right thing to have done with this situation was to fully concentrate on the social intervention, the distribution would have been simple and easy because we have done some before in the era of President Rawlings where about 2 million Ghanaians were driven out of Nigeria,” he said.

He stated that government should have considered the soldiers and the NADMO aiding in the distribution of the foods effectively as they are more experience in dealing with such magnitude of pressure and have the ability to handle disasters.

He also intimated that the Akufo-Addo government should have housed the street dwellers in the various University campuses and the affordable houses as well as the camp given to the state by the Church of Pentecost, since it would have been an opportunity to run tests on them while in the various camps and also be able to distribute food to them evenly.