By Frank Amponsah
Information received indicate that the Ghana Airport Company Limited (GACL) and LCB are not doing enough to protect citizens from contracting the novel Coronavirus.
This paper has gathered that clearance for the LCB Worldwide Ltd. to install the International Disinfection Systems at the Airport where every vehicle, container, goods, passengers and conveyances are disinfected against harmful pathogens, has not been done.
According to a Service Agreement between Ghana Health Service and LCB Worldwide Ltd., the contract between the two entities was in response to the exponential increase in international travel and trade and emergence and re-emergence of international disease threats and other high risks.
In recognition of that, 194 countries of the United Nations voted to turn the World Health Organization’s International Health Regulations (IHR) (2005) PARTY V. Article 22 into International Law on 15th June 2007, and in 2012, the Ghanaian Parliament made IHR Regulations to become part of its law by passing Public Health Act. 851.
This has led to the Service Agreement between GHS and the company which has already resulted in the installation of similar International Disinfection Systems at the entry points including Tema Ports, except the Airport.
The Ghana Health Service according to information gathered, entered into the agreement with LCB Worldwide Ltd. when it was convinced that the company had created its International Disinfection Systems that are capable of disinfecting the exterior of baggage, cargo, containers, conveyances, goods and postal parcels.
“Application of the disinfection measures are based on prevention. They are there to slow down and limit the geographical expansion of the infectious pathogens and diseases by disinfecting the exteriors of the above mentioned conveyors,” the Minister of Health, Kwaku Agyeman-Manu stated in a letter to the Aviation Minister on May 17, 2019.
It has also been established that the deadline set out by the World Health Organization to implement the project was June 15, 2016; and considering the urgency of the matter, the Minister for Health directed that the implementing partners assist LCB Worldwide Ltd. to implement the project “as soon as possible.”
However, in this emerging novel Coronavirus pandemic, one would have thought that the Ghana Airport Company would take immediate steps to ensure the installation of the International Disinfection Systems at the Airports to curtail the importation of the virus into the country.
But, reliable information gathered is that LCB Worldwide Ltd is still awaiting clearance before going ahead with the installation of the systems at the Airport.
