President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has expressed satisfaction on the way and manner Ghana managed the Covid-19 situation which is now used as exemplary worldwide.
He said this while delivering the 2022 State of the Nation Address (SONA) in Parliament on Wednesday March 30.
“We could not have been prepared for the catastrophe that hit us. Even the richest economies with the most sophisticated structures were unprepared. Maybe some of us have forgotten what the experts were predicting at the time. Our health and medical infrastructure were woefully inadequate and we would not be able to cope, there were going to be piles of dead bodies strewn across the streets of Africa.
I remember the discussion on PPEs two years ago; nobody was asking or was interested in how much they cost.”
“I took the decision [that] we would prioritise the saving of lives and then we’d get together to rebuild our economy. Nobody imagined the devastation would be so widespread and last so long.”
“We had to learn some very hard lessons, and our belief in the need to be self-sufficient was reinforced when vaccine nationalism was played out blatantly by the rich and powerful countries,” he added.
This pandemic exposed other shortcomings of our country, which have, undoubtedly, contributed to the anxieties that have befallen the nation. Agenda 111 was born out of this necessity to address some of these shortcomings. At the normal rate of growth, we are not likely to make up the deficit in our health facilities infrastructure for a very long time. Hence, the need for a special, dedicated programme of infrastructural development.”