Communications Minister Ursula Owusu Ekuffu has dismissed calls for her colleague MP for Tema West Carlos Ahenkorah to be prosecuted for endangering the lives of his constituents by visiting registration centres after testing positive for Covid-19.
The deputy minister for Trade and Industry has since resigned after his admission was met with a backlash.
Despite his resignation, many Ghanaians including general secretary for the opposition NDC Johnson Asiedu Nketia have asked for Mr. Ahenkorah to be prosecuted.
However, speaking to Starr Mrs Owusu Ekuful argued that there are no legal basis for such demands.
According to her, the deputy minister has lost his job and that is punishment enough.
“I think that we all have work to do so sometimes in the heat of the moment you might lose sight of the fact that because of your status you need to isolate yourself from people. Once you know that you’ve been affected by the virus, it is imperative that you self isolate, and if you don’t do that it means you may unwillingly spread the virus.”
“So, I think it is most unfortunate that in the heat of the moment Carlos felt compelled to go out there and monitor the registration process. He said he took all the necessary precautions but it was incumbent on him to have been in isolation while he was still actively fighting the virus,” she noted.
On calls for his prosecution, she said “unless we can show that a particular individual contracted the virus by coming into contact with him because he went out on the monitoring, it will be difficult to establish a case for spreading Covid-19 unwillingly. So let’s not rush to thread into areas where there is no evidence to prosecute.”
She added “I think that if it is the punishment we want, he has laid down his position as deputy minister to take responsibility for it. You don’t beat a dead horse. What else would you be achieving by his prosecution? I think if he had insisted that he hadn’t done anything wrong and so was still going to defend his actions, then a call for further sanctions to be applied would be in order.”
“It is very rare in this country to have people acknowledging that what they did was wrong and so they will resign to take responsibility for it. Others would have been defending the indefensible and I don’t think that that is the right way,” she ended.
Source: Ghana/Starrfm.com.gh/103.5FM
