Coronavirus birthed the ‘Fix the Country' movement, not economic challenges - Health Minister

The Minister for Health, Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, has attributed the establishment of the ‘Fix the Country’ movement to the significant impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on Ghana and across the globe.

He expressed his frustrations on the failure of the group to considerably analyze the dire impact the pandemic has had on the globe as a whole, particularly with the supply chain and economic crisis.

The Minister, in a press briefing, indicated that countries all over the world have been greatly impacted by the pandemic, including the United States and the United Kingdom.

“Our situation was even better when we started easing ourselves out of restrictions. Elsewhere on the streets of London, they had to join queues for fuel and that was the first time I was seeing that. They couldn’t get gas for other drivers to drive. So productivity, cash flow and trading that brings us a lot of money were all affected.”

However, the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Dormaa Central constituency also cited a recent assessment by the World Health Organisation (WHO), as they named Ghana alongside South Korea to be the two countries that have adequately managed the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Amidst the pandemic, we did several things other countries missed traditionally. We led in several testing, tracing, treatment, and vaccination and carried them out successfully leading to the effective management of the COVID-19 pandemic. This has resulted in a huge expenditure from GoG, Donors (bilateral and multilateral) and World Bank. Industries and productivity were all heavily impacted, which has affected our revenue inflows. Basically, because we had to lock down the country for two months and as a result of social distancing, employers had to create spaces for their workers. Imagine an economy and productivity rate when workers had to work for 6 months in a year,” he stated.

“In spite of all these, we wouldn’t sit down to evaluate what has happened. As if nothing has happened, we have ‘Fix the country movement’. Reckless expenditure didn’t cause it but the pandemic that has never happened on the earth before,” he added.

The Health Minister further admitted the country needed to be improved, however, he established the government needs time to do that.