It’s still too early to lift ban on religious activities, others – Maurice Ampaw

While several groups and individuals are advocating for the removal of restrictions on religious activities and other social gatherings, private legal practitioner, Maurice Ampaw has expressed worry over such calls.

He believes the time is barely ripe for the removal of restrictions that have been imposed on the movement of people across the borders, on church activities, and

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Lawyer Maurice Ampaw’s worry comes on the back of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s recent statement that his government is in consultations with stakeholders to ease restrictions.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with GhanaWeb, Lawyer Ampaw said there is too much “impunity and indiscipline” in many Ghanaian societies thus, removing the ban without caution will only allow such acts to thrive.

He argued that “…when we’re talking about indiscipline and impunity, we can find it in Ghanaian society. How will the system be able to monitor and ensure that those places that have been open will be complying with the precautionary measures? That’s the question because we’re talking about nationwide, people in the rural areas…we must be very cautious in dealing with this matter. And I think that it is too early to allow the church…”

Lawyer Maurice Ampaw suggested to GhanaWeb that, alternatively, the removal of restriction could be done in several phases to allow for quality monitoring to prevent further spread and resurgence of the virus.

“…if anything at all we should have them in phases so that we can monitor them, we can start with maybe the orthodox churches or others that are well established…the borders too, it’s too early, we should be lifting them gradually and putting in proper structures and systems to control…,” he said.

Ghana like several other countries suffering the scourge of the Novel Coronavirus has already begun easing restrictions on movement and on other activities.

But health experts warn that this may give way for the resurgence of another wave of the coronavirus.

So far, Ghana’s active cases have risen to 5,193. Greater Accra Region remains the area with the highest number of cases having recorded 5430 so far.

Ahafo Region is the only area with no recorded cases of the Coronavirus.