National Organiser of the ruling New Patriotic Party, Sammy Awuku, has said the party will feature the achievements of President Nana Akufo-Addo in the ongoing fight against the novel coronavirus in its upcoming political campaign.

Speaking on Joy News’ Upfront, Sammy Awuku said the NPP's decision to include the achievements in the campaign message is to highlight the ruling party's competence and leadership prowess in dealing with unforeseen challenges such as the pandemic with a full rounded approach.

“First of all we’ve shown courage, we’ve shown honesty and we’ve shown that...we can do it again. That is what I am saying, that...the way we’ve handled [the health crisis in Ghana] will also form part of our narrative that when we were confronted with this pandemic, this was our response, this was what we were able to do as a people.

“We’ve limited the impact, we’ve contact traced, and we’ve ensured that all over Africa, I think, we are one of the countries, if not the highest to have tested many people and contact traced in terms of fighting this pandemic,” he explained.

He noted that adding the government’s feats in the ongoing anti-Covid-19 campaign to their campaign message will be advantageous for the party.

“It will inure to our advantage because I did say from the onset that none of the political parties could predict that they were going to face a pandemic in their first term or when elected into office. So this was quite an unforeseen challenge and your response, your ability to stand firm, your ability to say that look this is what we need to do to get out of this situation.

“Mind you, we’re not out of the woods yet, we’re not out of the situation, but the steps we’re taking; fumigating market places was not more or less to say fight coronavirus but to also fight the underlying disease and causes of it.

“People buying foodstuff from the market that have got infested with diseases and all that, all these things did help every step in the way. We don’t have the resources, the capacity like that of the western world, but within our confines, we’ve done everything possible to keep our people safe,” he said.

Sammy Awuku stated that the current government is doing extremely well in the fight against the virus as well as other underlying factors that could potentially lead to a surge in the pandemic in the country.

According to him, previous governments had not performed well when faced with more preventable and predictable epidemics, however, Akufo-Addo’s response and preparedness in the face of the unpredictable coronavirus has been tremendous.

“You don’t have to rule that out. You don’t have to rule that out because we are confronted with the challenge and it will be part our campaign. In 2016 we had tens and thousands of people dying out of Cholera. We also had instances where people had died through flooding and how it was handled.

“We’ve had situations where Malaria became a killer in our country. So you had also seen the preparedness of this government even though we were not, we couldn’t predict, we couldn’t have also predicted that we were going to have coronavirus. But our response to this pandemic for me has been very encouraging.

“Nana Addo has shown leadership, he’s shown courage and I think that for us in the NPP ofcourse when we are listing the very thing we believe we’ve been able to do for the Ghanaian people, our response to this pandemic should form part of our narrative,” he said.

He however debunked rumours that some decisions made by the government in combating Covid-19 had been politically motivated.

“We have done this regardless of political interest, and I give you an example, every action and decision taken by government as far as this pandemic is concerned has not been politically motivated.”