APA – Accra (Ghana)
The declaration by the West African military chiefs that they are prepared to use force to restore democracy in Niger following last month’s coup if diplomacy fails is one of the leading stories in the Ghanaian press on Friday.
The Graphic reports that the West African military chiefs have said they are prepared to use force to restore democracy in Niger following last month’s coup if diplomacy fails.
The generals from the ECOWAS group of nations are meeting in Ghana to co-ordinate possible military intervention.
The Ecowas peace and security commissioner, Abdel-Fatau Musah, said almost all member states were committed to contributing troops and are ready to intervene in Niger.
He added that the coup leaders in Niger still had time to pull back from the brink – but said all options were on the table if they did not restore civilian rule.
The threat of intervention has raised fears of a wider conflict, as the military governments in Mali and Burkina Faso have said they would side with their counterparts in Niger.
ECOWAS officials say their resources will be used to support troops, but they will also welcome any outside help.
The newspaper says that Ghana has now transitioned into a more aggressive phase to eliminate malaria, a leading cause of death.
The Ghana Health Service (GHS), which announced this yesterday, said the decision followed significant progress made in the control of the epidemic and lessons learnt over the years.
Malaria prevalence had reduced from 27.5 per cent in 2011 to 8.6 per cent in 2022, while mortality had reduced by 95 per cent between 2012 and 2022, representing a decline from 2,799 deaths in 2012 to 151 in 2022.
At a press conference in Accra yesterday, the Manager of the National Malaria Elimination Programme, Dr Keziah Malm, said elimination would be done by strengthening the interventions that had helped in the control of malaria over the years and the introduction of a few new ones.
The new ones include mass drug administration, post-discharge malaria chemoprevention and scaling up malaria vaccination, as well as intermittent preventive treatment of malaria in schoolchildren.
Dr Malm also mentioned the conventional interventions to include larvae source management, distribution of long-lasting insecticide-treated mosquito nets, social behaviour change campaigns and vector surveillance, as well as vaccination which was on a pilot basis.
The others are research and indoor residual spraying.
“I know when some people hear about elimination, they say it’s not going to be possible but we believe it’s possible progressively,” the Malaria Elimination Programme manager said.
Dr Malm added that the zero malaria targets were feasible as a lot had been achieved but more needed to be done because malaria remained a national risk, with an impact on social and economic development.
She said while malaria remained a public health concern and a leading cause of death, projections of the impact made by national interventions showed that elimination was very possible as a country.
The Ghanaian Times reports that the Bank of Ghana (BoG) has clarified that it supported the government to the tune of GH¢47.9 billion in 2020 and 2022 and not GH¢80 billion as being speculated in the section of the media.
A statement issued by the Bank in Accra yesterday and copied to the Ghanaian Times, said the BoG supported the government to the tune of GH¢10 billion in 2020 to cover the COVID-19 Pandemic Bond to enable the government meet its financial obligations and coronavirus expenditures during the period to keep the economy running.
It said the Bank also supported the government with GH¢37.9 billion in 2022 to help the latter pay salaries and settle government debt maturities as the capital market was shut to the country due to its growing and unsustainable debt.
“The BoG did not finance government between 2017 and 2019 except 2020 because of the coronavirus disease which dwindled government revenue and rather increased its expenditure,” it said.
The statement said BoG in 2022 had to come to the support of the government to meet its financial obligations due to the lingering socio-economic impact of the pandemic on the economy.
It said the BoG would not finance the government this and the coming years as part of the International Monetary Fund programme.
The Bank of Ghana has come under criticisms of mismanagement due to the GH¢60 billon loss the bank incurred in 2022.
In the annual report and financial statements of the Bank issued in Accra couple of weeks ago indicate that, the Bank incurred loss of about GH¢60 billion.
The newspaper says that the Ghana Health Service (GHS) has lost 525 of its skilled personnel and professionals to brain drain within the last 12 months, the Director-General, Dr Patrick Kuma Aboagye, has revealed.
To this end, he said the service had put in place a number of measures to mitigate the impact of the loss of these professionals on healthcare delivery in the country.
“Definitely we’ve suffered with the brain drain but looking at the numbers, in terms of absolute numbers we are not affected, we have lost experienced people, we have lost some skilled staff but we have also put in place measures to ensure that in the next two years we are able to replace them,” he said.
Dr Kuma Aboagye disclosed this in Accra yesterday when the GHS took its turn at the weekly briefings organised by the Ministry of Information.
He explained that the measures adopted to mitigate the effects of the brain drain phenomenon included, further training for staff, the recruitment of more nurses, stressing that “currently we have to recruit additional nurses and we have been able to send doctors to the rural areas.”
The Director-General said a total of 33,625 new staff including nurses had been recruited by the service to boost the capacity of the GHS to deliver on its mandate.
He said in pursuit of the attainment of universal healthcare by 2030, the service had developed a strategy to strengthen primary healthcare and deepen collaboration with its partners towards the redesigning of primary healthcare system in the country.
This, he said, would lead to the improvement of quality and provide more patient-centred care in the country.
GIK/APA