Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has urged Ghanaians to desist from undermining the work of health experts and other professionals leading the COVID-19 fight in Ghana.
Government has come under pressure in recent times after some people accused it of manipulating COVID-19 figures in the country.
Unhappy with such allegations, Oppong Nkrumah at a press briefing on Wednesday, April 22, 2020, urged the public desist from making such claims.
He also admonished especially the media to refrain from using their platforms to accuse health officials helping to rid the country of COVID-19 of “intellectual dishonesty”.
“It is fair to raise questions about the data and the science and even for the academic, they believe in peer review. What is unfair is to impugn ill-motive or intellectual dishonesty to the professors, the doctors, the lab technicians, and the experts breaking the backs around the clock in trying to get data to help solve this problem, that’s unfair to them. It is fair to ask questions and we will do our best to get them to answer them, what is not fair is to impune ill motive at these experts helping in these times. Let’s encourage and support them and not to be throwing their works out of the window,” he appealed.
Concerns of data credibility
A former Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Professor Agyeman Badu Akosa, demanded an explanation after he raised concerns over the accuracy of data provided by the government since the outbreak of the novel Coronavirus in Ghana.
He also accused the government of “managing” the country’s COVID-19 statistics.
But a Deputy Information Minister, Pius Enam Hadzide, expressed shock at the allegations levelled against the government.
“I am particularly scandalised hearing that a man of the standing of Prof. Akosa will allegedly make those statements. I am scandalised, and to accuse the government of managing the figures without providing any iota of evidence.”
Ghana currently has 1,154 confirmed cases with 120 recoveries and nine deaths.