The Ghanaian Minaret

Accra – The Zongo Development Fund (ZoFD), an agency of the Ministry of Inner Cities and Zongo Development has launched its range of hygiene products that are intended for distribution to some 40,000 households in the Zongo communities.

So far, some 36,500 locally manufactured hygiene items and 10,000 pieces of face masks have been produced out of an expected 200,000 packs of hygiene items and one million face masks that are to be distributed within the next three months to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

The delivered consignment of hygiene items consisted of 20,000 liquid soaps and 16,500 pieces of hand sanitisers.

The sector minister, Dr Mustapha Hamid on Tuesday launched the ZoFD branded products which were produced by Focus Women Network, an entrepreneurship organisation for Zongo women.

In his remarks, Dr Hamid said that the inner cities and Zongo communities which are undoubtedly the most vulnerable communities would be most negatively impacted by the ravages of COVID-19 and therefore more attention was needed to help keep the communities safe.

“Covid-19 is a national matter and currently in about 9 to 10 regions out of 16 and even in regions that we do not have covid 19 yet, it is important to say we adhere to the wisdom of prevention is better than cure,” he said.

The current situation of most inner cities and zongo communities with regard to poor social distancing and congestion he said should encourage Ghanaians to take spatial planning more seriously.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of ZoFD, Arafat Sulemana Abdulai in an interview disclosed that due procurement procedures were followed in selecting an indigenous group to produce the products.

“In all, we had about four different groups who showed interest and were shortlisted. When we looked at the proposals based on cost and value we decided to go with this one(Focus Women Network)” he said.

The Ghana Islamic Society for Education and Reformation, a non-governmental organisation used the occasion to present 200 boxes of food items to the Fund for onward distribution to vulnerable persons in the Zongo communities.

The Society had previously donated food items to the Madina Zongo community in Accra and the Ayawaso West Municipal Assembly.

Safwan Wali, President of the Society in his remarks described the gesture as a “very humble contribution” towards the good effort of the government and also a way of showing sympathy to citizens who were hardly hit by the movement-restricting lockdown which was lifted on Monday.

The unprecedented nature of the pandemic he said would require all the cooperation and positive responses from citizens to overcome the challenge.