President Nana Akufo-Addo is in Ghana and not flown to London for COVID-19 treatment as reported by the Herald newspaper, Jubilee House has denied.
“Kindly disregard the false story published by the Herald newspaper to the effect that the President was, on Saturday, ‘flown out of the country to London for COVID-19 treatment;”, the Director of Communication at the Presidency, Mr Eugene Arhin, said in a statement on Sunday.
“It is clearly a figment of the author’s imagination”, the statement added. Mr Arhin said: “The President is in the country, and he’s currently at the Presidential Villa in the Jubilee House observing the 14-day self-isolation precautionary measure in compliance with COVID-19 protocols”.
President Akufo-Addo’s self-isolation decision follows his exposure to a COVID-19-positive person, Information Minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah said in a statement issued on Saturday, 4 July 2020.
“On the advice of doctors, the President of the Republic, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, is from today, 4 July 2020, taking a 14-day precautionary self-isolation measure in compliance with COVID-19 protocols,” the statement added.
It said: “The President has elected to do so after, at least, one person within his close circle, tested positive for COVID-19 today.” According to the statement, the President opted to self-isolate “out of the abundance of caution” even though he has tested negative for the virus.
“The President will, during this precautionary self-isolation period, be working from the Presidential Villa at the Jubilee House, Accra,” the statement added.
Just on Friday, 3 July 2020, the President accepted the resignation letter of the Deputy Minister of Trade and Industries, Mr Carlos Kingsley Ahenkorah, after he exposed others to the disease despite knowing he had tested positive.
This followed the admission by Mr Ahenkorah of his breach of the COVID-19 protocols, when, as a person certified to be positive for the virus, he visited a registration centre in his constituency before the period of self-isolation was complete.
A letter from the Presidency signed by Mr Eugene Arhin, Director of Communication, said President Akufo-Addo is admonishing all of his appointees to bear in mind that they are to provide leadership, at all times, for adherence to the protocols that have been established to help the nation defeat COVID-19.
In accepting the resignation, Nana Akufo-Addo recognised that Mr Ahenkorah had acted honourably in the circumstances by resigning from his office and wished him well. “I took my COVID-19 to some registration centres” – Carlos Ahenkorah, but says “I was very careful”
On Thursday, 2 July 2020, Mr Carlos Ahenkorah said despite being COIVD-19 positive, he toured some registration centres to see how the process was going when the Electoral Commission began registering Ghanaians for a new voter ID card ahead of the 7 December 2020 polls.
The Tema West MP admitted to Asempa FM’s Ekosiisen political talk show host Osei Bonsu in an interview that he toured the centres on the first day of the exercise – Tuesday, 30 June 2020.
“I decided to see how some of the centres were just operating. So, I stepped out into town a bit. It didn’t mean I couldn’t go out. My test results had shown I was positive a week ago and after one week, my doctors said I could step out,” he told Asempa FM
“They [doctors] said I could go out, except that I needed to wear my mask and observe social distancing,” the lawmaker added. He said he was “very careful” and “very mature about it”.
