Kenyasi Number Two, (A/R), Nov. 27, GNA – Newmont Ahafo Mine has presented Goil fuel coupons valued GHC6,900 to the Bono Regional Office of the Information Services Department (ISD) to empower the Department to upscale COVID-19 education.
Mr Imoro Ayibani Tebra, the Bono Regional Director of the ISD told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in an interview when he received the coupons from the Company at Kenyasi Number Two in the Asutifi North District of the Ahafo Region.
Mr Tebra said the Department was expected to reach out to more than 2,000 local communities in the Bono, Bono East, and Ahafo Regions.
He explained his Department, therefore, submitted a proposal to the mining company for support to strengthen COVID-19 sensitization to prevent the spread of the pandemic in the three regions.
Mr Tebra said the government was doing everything possible to prevent the spread of the disease and flatten the nation’s COVID-19 curve, hence the need for the ISD to augment such efforts.
“There is the availability of vaccines and we must also intensify public education to help dispel theories and myths surrounding the vaccine to encourage people to take the jab”, he said.
Mr Tebra expressed discomfort with people’s unwillingness to be vaccinated, hence the need to upscale public education in the three regions.
He indicated the Bono Regional Health Directorate had received about 81,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines saying “if people failed to go for the vaccines they would expire and trigger the spread of the viral disease”.
Mr Tebra said the ISD had also intensified public education on FM radio stations and information centres in local communities as well as on cinema vans.
Mr Richard Adu, the Community Development Superintendent, Newmont Ahafo Mine, noted that COVID-19 had changed the dynamics of the way people lived and it was having huge devastating effects on the economy.
He, therefore, urged the ISD to use the coupons judiciously to effect attitudinal change and motivate the public to go for the vaccination.
GNA