Private Sector Fund serves 60,000 packs of food to 'Kayayei' in lockdown areas

The Ghana COVID-19 Private Sector Fund has distributed over 60,000 packs of food to head porters, popularly known as ‘kayayei’ within six days of the inception of its ‘Feed-a-kayayo’ project.

On the first day of the project on Wednesday April 1, 2020, 6,000 hot meal packs were distributed with the number increasingly steadily to 12,500 meals by Monday, April 6, 2020.

The Ghana COVID-19 Private Sector Fund is an initiative by private sector entrepreneurs to raise money from their ranks and from the general Ghanaian population to support the campaign to deal largest public health emergency the world has faced in a century – the novel coronavirus.

So far more than 200 Ghanaians have been infected by the virus with five deaths in the country. The fear is that if steps are not taken to slow and then halt the rate of infection in the country, the situation will get out of hand raising the spectre of more deaths and a serious strain on Ghana’s health service delivery system.

Thus the government imposed a lockdown on the areas with the largest confirmed cases – Accra and Kumasi. The lockdown, however, has meant that thousands of head porters who earn daily wages are unable to work to feed themselves. The ‘feed-a-kayayo’ project is therefore meant to alleviate the plight of the head porters and ensure that they do not starve during the period of the lockdown.

A Commissioner of the Ghana Revenue Authority, Madam Julie Essiam, who mooted the idea of the ‘feed-a-kayayo’ project, has so far been very impressed with what it has achieved.

“We are very confident that we will scale up and next week we will still continue so long as the lockdown is in place,” she says. “We all have to eat. Everybody has to have a meal a day.”

Former Youth and Sports Minister, Elvis Afriyie-Ankrah, who has been volunteering his time to help with the distribution of the hot cooked meals, is urging Ghanaians to support the Ghana COVID-19 Private Sector Fund to make the ‘feed-a-kayayo’ project a success.

“As volunteers from different backgrounds and political groups, we are just helping to support the needy and vulnerable,” he says. “This is a time for us to show love and solidarity to our fellow countrymen.”