COVID-19 Insurance Promised by Akufo-Addo to Health Workers Were Never Paid

The General Secretary of the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwifery Association, David Tenkorang-Twum, has revealed that the insurance Akufo-Addo government had promised health workers for their frontline service in the fight against COVID-19 was never paid.

He made the shocking revelation while chatting with JoyNews’ Emefa Apawu, on Sunday.

“Even the 50% basic salary that was supposed to be advanced to those who took care of our Covid-19 patients, most of them [health workers] did not get it,” he said.

According to him, “Majority of the people did not get it. I know people who died and their relatives never got the insurance. So you see, we are challenged with a lot of things and if things continue this way, it will not augur well for all of us.”

The revelation stirs more murk in the corruption punctuated stealing of COVID-19 funds by members of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) through the instrumentality of President Akufo-Addo and the Jubilee House and the dodgy accounting that the government has failed to convince parliament with.

In a comedy of errors regarding how much the government has spent on COVID-19, President Akufo-Addo has reported Ghc17.7billion; his Finance Minister has variously reported Ghc8billion, and over Ghc20billion last year, and then this year reported Ghc12billion.

Whatever the amount that the government eventually settles on, it beggars the question as to why health workers were not paid the insurance promised them and if they were not paid, what accounts for the billions that the government is claiming to have spent on COVID-19.

On April 5, 2020, President Akufo-Addo announced the 50% allowance to health workers as one of the government’s incentives for fighting the pandemic.

Two years down the line David Twum-tenkorang reveals they were not paid the allowance even though the government claims to have spent billions to fight the pandemic.