The Ghanaian Minaret

Accra – The Zongo Development Fund (ZoDF), an agency of the Ministry of Inner Cities and Zongo Development has collaborated with the Ghana Office of Qatar Charity, an international humanitarian organisation to provide sanitary items valued at GH¢194,640 to 600 families at Kasoa Zongo in the Central region.

Items were dispatched to the community for distribution on Thursday where each family in their homes received a package consisting of five face masks, four bottles of 500 millilitres (ml) liquid soap, four 1.3 litres hand sanitisers and seven 750ml bottles of Dettol.

At a presentation ceremony in Accra, the Zongo Development Minister, Dr Mustapha Abdul Hamid who received the items on behalf of ZoDF expressed his gratitude to Qatar Charity by saying that the gesture was timely in augmenting the government’s intervention for the vulnerable and less privileged in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Already the Ministry is doing food distribution among Zongo communities. But the Zongo communities in our country are many and so we need all the help to cover” he said.

He underscored the need for equity and fairness in sharing of scarce resources and so entreated persons in other Zongo communities to anticipate that not all persons who had access to distributed food would be entitled to other relief items.

The Board chairman of ZoDF, Rear Admiral Muniru Tahiru in an interview lamented the poor adherence to social distancing protocols in the Zongo communities due to dense population and infrastructural defects.

He, therefore, described interventions such as public sensitisation and the distribution of sanitary items and nose masks as a ” damage control” measure to mitigate the spread of the virus in such dwellings.

Director of Qatar Charity, Izzeddin Daifullah for his part indicated that beyond the distribution of sanitary items, the organisation would soon embark on delivery of food items to the poor and vulnerable communities whose livelihoods had been negatively affected by the lockdown.

Prior to the start of item distribution, the leadership of Qatar Charity and the fund paid a courtesy call on the Odikro of Kasoa, Nai Sarki Sani Saeed Yusuf III.

The Sarkin Faada (Chief of Staff) Amadu Awudu speaking on behalf of the chief commended the government for its interventions but however suggested the need for financial support to be made available for families.

He also urged the media to ensure balance and circumspection with reportage on happenings in Kasoa which he noted had often been one-sided and tended to cast a slur on the community, especially during the lockdown period.