Member of Parliament for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa
The Member of Parliament for North Tongu, Mr. Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has said Frontiers Healthcare Services Limited, the company contracted by the government to offer compulsory coronavirus testing at the Kotoka International Airport, made a staggering profit of US$130 million (GHS984.7 million) over the last 18 months.
Until President Akufo-Addo, on Sunday, 27 March 2022, cancelled the compulsory Covid-19 test regime at the airport, any Ghanaian abroad returning into the country had to pay $50 for a compulsory covid test, while foreigners were made to pay $150.
The Minority in parliament, including former President John Dramani Mahama, recently called on the government to scrap the compulsory testing, describing it as an “extortionist scheme”.
Mr. Ablakwa, in a Facebook post, alleged that Frontiers Healthcare Services Ltd was awarded the contract after the company was hurriedly put up in less than two months.
He noted that “the majority of Ghanaian companies doing legitimate business for decades have never seen that kind of balance sheet in their entire corporate life.”
“Per the unpatriotic nepotistic agreement, the Ghana Airport Company, which belongs to all 30.8 million Ghanaians, made a paltry US$8 million. Don’t be surprised, therefore, that Ghana Airport cannot pay their electricity bills,” he added.
He stressed that Frontiers and a “few nation-wrecking cronies they are fronting for” have made an “inhumane booty of US$130million from a pandemic which claimed countless lives.”
“Imagine how GHS1billion could have transformed our foremost institutions whose scientists sacrificed greatly to fight the pandemic — I am referring to the globally acclaimed: Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research, the National Public Health and Reference Lab, Korle-Bu, and the West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens (WACCBIP),” he bemoaned adding that “we are, quite clearly, our own enemies.”