Politics of Wednesday, 18 March 2020

Source: peacefmonline.com

Coronavirus: $100 million allocation too much - Murtala Mohammed

General Secretary for the Progressive People's Party, Murtala Mohammed General Secretary for the Progressive People's Party, Murtala Mohammed

General Secretary for the Progressive People's Party (PPP), Murtala Mohammed says the US$100 million allocation to help combat the COVID-19 outbreak is too much for such a disease.

As a panelist on UTV’s ‘Adekye Nsroma’ newspaper discussion show, the PPP Communicator praised President Akufo-Addo for announcing strict precautionary measures to help prevent the spread of the disease in the country.

COVID-19 according to him is not a major sickness to warrant this money or resources, therefore, half of the allocated money should be used to treat malaria, poverty and other related problems in the country.

“We all complained when US$2.5 million was the allocated funds from government to fight coronavirus, but indeed I am still complaining that the current US$100 million allocated fund is too much, because I have a different understanding that half of that money when used to fight malaria diseases in this country, the nation in four years will totally get rid of malaria,” he said.

“I don’t see this so-called sickness as a major one to warrant US$100 million funding, I think the money as compared to the disease is too much,” he added.

Murtala Mohammed further praised government on his swift initiatives taken but encouraged citizens to break chain on panic submissions on the outbreak.

"Government is trying its best but whatever is being done in the Greater Accra Region must be decentralized to the other 15 regions, I can tell you that the magnitude of education on COVID-19 in the capital city is never the same in Kintampo..." he said.