COVID-19: Zoomlion's fumigation exercise was GHS81million loss to Ghana — Dr. Thomas Anaba

The Executive Director for the African Centre for Health Policy Research and Analysis, Dr. Thomas Anaba has said the COVID-19 fumigation of markets, schools and public institutions by Zoomlion Ghana Limited was a huge loss to the country.

He alleged that the chemical used didn’t serve its purpose.

Dr. Anaba made the allegation during his speech at the TEIN induction ceremony of level 100 students of Gbewa College of Education in the Upper East Region on Saturday, July 17, 2022.

He stated, “You remembered they said they were distributing PPEs to school. We traced and realized that many schools didn’t get PPEs meanwhile millions were spent on PPEs. The most interesting thing, I see was how they collaborated with private institutions to dupe Ghana, is the fumigation of churches, markets, schools and public institutions where Zoomlion Ghana Limited claimed they have fumigated Ghana and collected Ghc 81million when they knew very that the fumigation they were doing had no effect because the chemical they were using was not going to serve the purpose they were used for. So, that was Ghc81million loss."

He added, “COVID-19 came and all of us were worried how the government could get money to solve the covid-19 problem. Because, since 2019 our economy started sliding down. But fortunately for Ghana, the government was even able to raise more money than what we expected to raise to manage COVID-19. And if you also check our budget and our revenue generation, it is only in 2020 that we slide down about Ghc5billion but, the rest of the years, we meet our target and even exceeded and that shows that the government had enough money to manage covid-19 and even had excess”.

He noted that government up to date has failed to properly account to Ghanaians the expenditure on covid-19.

Dr. Anaba stated, “But here we are if you want to check what government used the monies for. After the Finance Minister came to accounts for it, we virtually used half of the monies. The rest he never told us where it went into. From the very beginning of management of COVID-19, some of us have serious problems with how monies were been expended.

“We complained, first about news dissemination. They left everything to Kojo Oppong Nkrumah in Accra, media houses were left out, and even the National Commission for Civic Education was left out. Some of us have to come out and talk vigorously before government started giving them money. They never involve local radio stations to be able to translate all the information into local languages. We also saw what happen during the lockdown, they prepared a food handout for people virtually throwing it without accountability. We complained that that was not going to be accountable, after that, they gave us very huge figures about what they spent.

He continued, “Meanwhile, we saw benevolent institutions and persons donating items in a very orderly manner, telling people how much they have donated to institutions, and that one could not be done by the government. It came to quarantine, whereby institutions facilities that were used for quarantine, when you trace the background, they were virtually facilities owned by NPP apparatchik. And you were false to pay huge sums of monies instead of government facilitating it and rather making the monies for us to cushion Ghana, they were rather making people in their party make benefits, make do with the incomes from COVID-19 and leaving Ghana. If you look at the revenue we could have generated more, even Kotoka international airport, we could have made a lot of money there, and remember the airport was built with a loan. Instead of letting the COVID-19 test be for the airport, they rather gave it to a private body that made millions of dollars and took it away whiles the government was struggling for money to pay for the construction of the airport. This shows the government wasn’t smart enough.

The former Director General of the Ridge Hospital under the Mahama administration stressed that in spite of all the financial support Ghana received from the World Bank etc, the country spent little on covid-19 vaccine procurement.

“When you come to purchase of vaccines, Ghana government has not spent any much money in purchasing vaccine from Ghana’s government pocket. We got virtually everything through donations. The only vaccines we purchased with our money was the one deviled with corruption where a Finance Minister and the Health Minister went ahead and paid money for vaccines we even didn’t have and that really brought about the brouhaha in the system.

“They decided to insure all health front liners, I am a front liner, many private facilities were front liners but they never had any insurance but the worst of it is that all those who were insured with insurance were insured with Enterprise Insurance, the same Finance Minister’s private company this shows how they worked to dupe this country of resources”.