The Minister-designate for Health, Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, has explained that a decision went into allowing Frontier Health Service Limited to start testing for Covid-19 at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) before eventually being licensed.
During his vetting by the Appointments Committee of Parliament on Wednesday, February 10, Mr Agyeman-Manu admitted to a question posed by North Tongu lawmaker Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa that the company was allowed to start operating when it had not been granted permit.
Mr Ablakwa said the company started operating on September 1, 2020 but was licensed was on November 3, same year, after it had already commenced operations.
“When they started operating from the 1st September, they had not been licensed. They only licensed them on the 3rd of November, by the time they were operating at the Airport human lives were at stake,” Mr Ablakwa said.
In answer, the Health Minister-designate explained: “In the pandemic, we had a phrase we are using that we were not in normal times.
“There were certain things that we had to do and try to rectify as we go forward because of urgency of what we should do immediately.
“This licensing was done even on my insistence. When I went round to do the checks and found out that this hasn’t been done, I said No. Quickly let us go and rectify it before things get worse.
“When people are dying and people are flying, people want to visit wives and husbands and we needed to open the airports, and we had to put in place things immediately for them to be able to be screened to stop importation of the virus into our country. I must admit that some things might have been done, that is why we have this.”
By Laud Nartey|editors.3news.com|Ghana
