Editorial: Kotoka International Airport opens today

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo addressed the nation for the 16th time on Sunday in relation to Coronavirus and the additional easing of restrictions in the country.

As many had anticipated, the President announced the reopening and resumption of operations at the Kotoka International Airport, effective Tuesday, September 1.

In spite of the opening of the air border, the President was however emphatic that borders by land and sea will continue to remain closed to human traffic until arrangements are made for their safe reopening.

To ensure that cases are not imported into the country, any passenger arriving in Ghana must be in possession of a negative COVID-19 PCR test result from an accredited laboratory in the country of origin.

The test, he stated, should have been done not more than 72 hours before the scheduled departure from the country of origin.

Despite all these measures, the President also said all disembarking passengers must wear their face masks, and upon disembarking, each passenger will undergo a mandatory COVID-19 test at the airport terminal, at a fee to be borne by the passenger with the test result to be made available within half an hour.

Children under the ages of five have been exempted from these tests.

Airport officials conducted a series of simulation from Friday through to Sunday before the President was given the green light to announce the re-opening of the airport. The Ghana Airports Company Limited (GACL) is confident about smooth operations which will provide the uttermost comfort to passengers, and also block all avenues of COVID-19 imported cases.

A disinfection exercise would be carried out to prepare the airport for re-opening today. Some of us were privy to watch the President on television as he was conducted around the KIA after the simulation exercises and we must say the preparations were thorough and in-depth.

We are all relieved that after months of torment and trepidation because of the novel coronavirus, the country is slowing returning to normalcy and our air borders have now been declared open to flights from around the globe to integrate us back to the global marketplace.

Airline operators last week Friday met with the Minister of Aviation and expressed readiness to commence operations. The operators said they had configured their systems to allow for ticket sales and setting up routing schedules with neighbouring countries especially Nigeria which has also opened its air borders.

 Let’s guard against creeping monetisation of politics

As Ghana prepares to undertake its eighth Presidential and Parliamentary elections on December 7 in this Fourth Republic, monetisation of politics has begun to rear its ugly head.

Executive Director of the Centre for Democratic Development-Ghana (CDD-Ghana), Professor H. Kwasi Prempeh observes that: “Money in politics has an even greater danger in encouraging or facilitating state capture, which is a different degree of corruption wherein the institutions of state, the laws and policies that we must make in the public interest are made not to serve the public interest, but to give clearance for money interests that are behind the campaign”.

Speaking at a public dialogue on ‘Campaign Finance Reforms in Ghana’ last week, Professor Prempeh explained that nowadays people who take up appointive positions use them as stepping stones to amass wealth to go and contest party primaries – a trend that he said has now become a norm and is disturbing.

He noted that the current status quo holds serious national security and development implications if not addressed immediately.

For instance, State-owned enterprises (SOEs), particularly those with internally generated funds, remain largely ineffective because they are manned by politicians seeking their own interest and not that of the state.

Professor Prempeh opines that political parties should be regulated and their accounts audited as a way of determining their sources of funding. As the law stands today, only citizens can contribute or sponsor political parties.

However, the CDD Executive Director sees loopholes in this law since in our system, it is nearly impossible to trace money flow. It is difficult to identify party contributors, and this exposes the state to several dangers, he notes.

“Unregulated money in politics provides a conduit for crime to enter public office. Illicit money finds a way to get laundered”.

There is little doubt that the monetisation of politics in the country discourages people with the right ideas but without money from entering the political space. And even when people with ideas make it to the top of the political ladder, the nature of party politics makes them ineffective since they become indebted and loyal to their sponsors and financiers.

We must guard against this creeping phenomenon in our body-politic and ensure that the undue monetization of our political space does not turn around and haunt us in the future to the country’s detriment.

 

 

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