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Opinions of Monday, 20 April 2020

Columnist: Kwame Owusu Danso

The politics of coronavirus

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You seize the opportunity to introduce a few new things in this era of crisis for your parochial interest?

1. The imposition of restrictions Act - the president can decide when he deems necessary without recourse to parliament prevent people from any form of gathering.

2. COVID-19 fund, which has not produced any expenditure explanations nor total contributions yet

3. Supply of food to 400,000 vulnerable for ghc2M daily - yet to be challenged or ascertained. How did we arrive at that figure?

4. $35m out of the supposed $100m approved by parliament.

5 $1bn IMF unconditional loan to cushion our perceived crashed economy due to coronavirus; i.e to support our fiscal and BOP needs.

. How much of the projected water and light bills did we spend and what is the breakdown?.

-The idea was to lockdown in order to contain the numbers and curb the spread of the virus, so why lift the lockdown when there’s an upsurge rather in the numbers?.

- What happens to the many PPE’s and Hand sanitizers locally made?.

- How much did we generate from the COVID-19 fund? What was it’s intended purpose? How much of it was used? Who was in charge of the disbursement?

What will be the need for the $1bn if the ban has been lifted, because we cannot say that our economy has all so crashed beyond repair as to warrant us still needing that $1bn fiscal support?.

What was the real reason for lifting this partial lockdown?

1. Were the numbers massaged?

2. For E.C and or the NIA to continue with their registration?. 3. Has our economy crashed?

Is this decision more political than scientific?

What are the real consequences of this decision by the Government.

We need more answers.