Dean of Graduate Studies at the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA) Dr. Kwaku Mensah Mawutor, has noted that the local economy faces severe challenges following the coronavirus pandemic if vaccines are not procured immediately.

He explained in an interview with Johnnie Hughes on the New Day show on TV3, Tuesday, January 9 that the inability of people to move freely to engage in their day-to-day economic activities out of fear of contracting the virus, is affecting the economy.

Dr. Mawutor said “COVID-19 is impacting the economy in a very negative manner, then it is time they sit up. Now the very survival of our economy is dependent on the vaccine and we all know that, and even this vaccine we will need to go in for some loans to get it, the few numbers that we have, for me the call for the shutdown is not an option, but we need to look at how best to restrict people and ensure how best to protect people”.

He decried the fact that the government opened schools without adequate Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) evenly distributed to schools to help students, as well as teachers to properly adhere to the COVID-19 protocols in order to protect themselves against the deadly Pandemic.

“We’ve heard a lot of news as to PPEs not provided to some sectors and areas, but you see, myself and you when we go to those schools, we expect some respect to observing the protocols, if you go in there and there’s this shift system, they’ve been able to restrict the numbers and also divide the classes into sections without even the PPEs, what comes to mind? At least something has been done, it’s unfortunate we’ve been mentioning this and I still can’t fathom the reason why the President and those in charge are not doing this thing right, by now PPEs should go to every school.

“And day in day out we have schools coming out to deny the fact that they have been given PPEs and they are not there. I think the time has come that the president must act very swift because he’s not been told the truth” he said.

Asked whether in his view the president is not being told the facts and truth on the ground in order to act appropriately, Dr. Mawutor said “it means you [the president] don’t have intelligence down there.

“You just cluster a whole class with large number of pupils, is it that the Head Teachers don’t understand the whole concept? These are people who have been paid extra responsibility allowance to ensure that leadership prevails wherever they have been sent to, are they doing the same? I don’t want to throw arsenals at only leadership, like the president, the government of the state.

“We should be looking at the individual efforts of the various facets of leadership, once again let’s sway a little bit into the area of politicking within the educational institutions, this is personal advice to the Ghana National Association of Teachers(GNAT): we’ve stayed home for a number of months, the government has been so benevolent to have even paid our salaries without working, if we still continue to persist on our entitlements at this crucial moment, it’s time we tell them that this is a time to sacrifice, the time is coming when all our coffers will run empty, we all must sacrifice” he charged.