The Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) for Ketu South, Elliot Edem Agbenorwu has appealed to hotel managers and owners to co-operate with the Assembly and allow their facilities to be used as quarantine centres, as at when the need arises.
Following the closure of the main entry points on the Ghana-Togo border, the Ketu South Municipality has become a hotspot for returnees who are using unapproved routes into the country.
The situation according to the MCE, Elliot Edem Agbenorwu has been very challenging despite the rigorous security arrangements along the borderline.
He said, “As a border community, the past few days have been very challenging for us, as we continue to record a high influx of people using unapproved routes along our borders despite the rigorous security arrangements we are putting in place.”
As a result, the assembly is forced to arrest and quarantine such people in order to minimize the possible spread of deadly Covid-19 pandemic.
But in a meeting with some hotel managers and owners at the Assembly on Tuesday, the MCE revealed that the Assembly is going through rocky moments to get hotel facilities to accommodate the returnees.
“We all would admit that we are in difficult times and as far as our own people continue to use motorbikes to facilitate the movement of people across the borders using unapproved routes, we would be needing your collaboration to be able to put them under the mandatory quarantine.
Unfortunately, that collaboration seems to be lacking on the part of the owners of the hotel facilities. In fact, it took as a hell of time to get a place for the 16 people who are now being quarantined,” he disclosed.
Mr. Agbenorwu appealed to the managers to willingly allow the use of their facilities for such purposes but assured them that government would ensure the disinfection of the place after the exercise.
“…so today, we invited you here to ask for your collaboration so that you would allow your facilities to be used as at when we need it. But the assurance is that, we won’t leave the facilities without fumigating or disinfecting them after the exercise; I assure you of that,” he added.
Currently, the municipality is playing host to about 20 returnees who are put under the mandatory quarantine, while some 24 other Nigerians arrested on Monday have been held hostage by the Aflao command of the Ghana Immigration Service.
The 24 according to the MCE are persons who have no business or documentation to be in Ghana and could best be described as criminals.
Source: Ghana | Starrfm.com.gh | Faisel Abdul-Iddrisu
