Executive Director of the Media Foundation West Africa, Sulemana Braimah, has expressed his disappointment in President Akufo-Addo over the decision to keep ambulances parked at the State House for over two weeks.
According to him, the president has failed to fulfill the promise he made at their last meeting to ensure the wellbeing of every Ghanaian.
“Nana, I am increasingly getting worried. It is becoming clear to me that you are not different. It is becoming clear to me that, you are beginning to prioritise access to power over the wellbeing of our people, especially the poor and vulnerable,” he said.
Mr Braimah said the president’s reason for ordering the ambulances to be parked is not legitimate, adding that it will not work in the government's favour in the 2020 election.
“If the non-distribution of the Ambulances was a political advice, it is a bad advice. It will harm your 2020 electoral prospects than help it,” he cautioned.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo during last week’s meet the press, noted that he ordered for the ambulances to be parked till the government takes delivery of all 275 ambulances, noting that he didn’t want to be accused of being biased.
"The Minister for Special Development Initiative told me some of the ambulances were in and asked if she should distribute them and I said NO; she shouldn't. She should wait for the others to come in so that we can distribute all at the same time...Fortunately for us all of them will be in by the end of this month and on the 6th of January, I will commission them and the distribution will take place simultaneously and nobody will accuse me of favouritism, and so on. There is no justification on they being parked but if I was to send it here and not here I think you know the kind of discourse that will come," he stated.
But expressing his disappointment in the president’s statement, Sulemana Braimah noted that lives are being lost daily due to the unavailability of ambulances to transport the sick to health facilities in time.
“Ambulances are a matter of life and death. And for every single day that the ambulances remain parked, lives that could have been saved are lost. Nana, no power is worth a single soul and you know this. Nana, for the sake of the Pregnant women who die on motorbikes, bicycles and tricycles in the bushes and hither lands of our country due to lack of ambulances, please #ReleaseTheAmbulancesNow. I read over the weekend that two of your appointees had delivered in the US, not all women can afford that, Nana.”
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Sulemana Braimah and President Akufo-Addo