The Founder of the Progressive People’s Party, Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom, has urged the government to prioritise the health of citizens over the need to conduct elections amid the threat of COVID-19.
Dr. Nduom noted that the December polls are essential to Ghana’s democracy but not at the expense of human lives.
“An election is something that if necessary, we can do without but we cannot do without the human being in Ghana,” he noted in an interview on GN Radio in the UK with Ludwig Nii Jr.
“What will profit anybody to do well in an election and find out that all the people are sick or the people are not doing well and businesses are collapsing and so on and so forth.”
“So we must first take care of the health of the people,” Dr. Nduom stressed
Ghana as of July 5, 2020 had recorded 20,085 cases of COVID-19 with 122 fatalities.
In addition, 14,870 persons have been discharged after treatment.
The Greater Accra Region has the most cases with 10,979, out of which 2,501 are active.
The ongoing voter registration exercise has been a point of contention with observers warning it will contribute to a spike in cases of the virus.
Some health professionals in the country have written to the Electoral Commission asking it to pause the ongoing voter registration exercise until safer ways of conducting the exercise are identified to prevent further spread of COVID-19.
According to them, suspending the exercise will help prevent needless deaths related to the virus in the country.
“Pause the mass registration, figure out safer ways of carrying it out and prevent Ghana from suffering potentially thousands of deaths or continue with the exercise in this form and be remembered by posterity as a leader who supervised an exercise that allowed for the loss of multiple lives,” the group said in its letter to the commission.
