It's cruel to prevent parents from seeing wards yet allow NPP campaigns on SHS campuses – Sammy Gyamfi

The National Communication Officer of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr Sammy Gyamfi, has said it is “cruel” on the part of President Nana Akufo-Addo to open senior high schools in the midst of a raging a pandemic, prevent parents from visiting their wards yet open “the same schools for his party, NPP, and the Electoral Commission, who prioritise political power than human lives, to go in there and engage in shameful political activities which have the tendency to endanger the lives of our innocent SHS students.”

Mr Gyamfi said this, among others, is a setback to Ghana’s fight against the deadly coronavirus.

The EC, last week, visited high school campuses to register students who had turned 18 years and above for the voter ID card.

Since the reopening of schools, 10 schools have recorded COVID-19 cases.

As of Sunday, 12 May 2020, the country had recorded a total of 24, 518 coronavirus cases, 20,187 recoveries with 139 deaths.

Speaking at a press conference in Accra on Monday, 13 July 2020 on Ghana’s COVID-19 fight, Mr Gyamfi accused the government of doing little to curb the spread of the virus.

He told journalists: “The premature reopening of senior high schools by President Akufo-Addo without mass testing of students, teachers and workers as well as the failure to put in place and enforce appropriate safety measures in the reopened schools, which is leading to the spread of the virus among SHS students, is yet another major setback for our COVID-19 fight.”

“Today, it is sad and annoying to note that apart from the disregard for our COVID-19 safety protocols in our schools, the reopened schools have become centres, in fact, hotbeds for political campaigns by the ruling New Patriotic Party as was seen over the weekend when their National Youth Organiser, Henry Nana Boakye, led a team to campaign in some senior high schools in the Ashanti Region,” he stated.

Mr Gyamfi further wondered: “Is it not cruel that at a time 10 of the reopened senior high schools have recorded infections on their campuses and parents have been prevented from visiting their wards, as a so-called COVID-19 prevention measure, President Akufo-Addo has opened the same schools for his party, NPP, and the Electoral Commission, who prioritise political power than human lives to go in there and engage in shameful political activities, which have the tendency to endanger the lives of our innocent SHS students.”

In Mr Gyamfi’s view, “This show of total disregard for the lives of our innocent SHS children by President Akufo-Addo is unconscionable and reprehensible, to say the least, and must be condemned by all voices of conscience.”