A Ghanaian junior minister resigned on Friday for failing to self-isolate after testing positive for coronavirus, the presidency said.
Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry Carlos Kingsley Ahenkorah’s resignation has been accepted by President Nana Akufo-Addo with “immediate effect”, his office said in a statement.
“This follows the admission by the deputy minister of his breach of the COVID-19 protocols, when, as a person certified to be positive of the virus, he visited a registration centre in his constituency before the period of self-isolation was complete,” it said.
The presidency said that the minister ought to have led by example rather than violate self-isolation protocols.
The embattled minister told AFP that as an asymptomatic patient he was not a major threat to other people.
“I have COVID-19, but I’m asymptomatic. There is nothing shameful in catching COVID. I never got in the midst of people at the registration centre. I spoke to a few people at the centre and left,” Ahenkorah added.
The authorities in Ghana have introduced a raft of measures, including self-isolation, lockdown, mask-wearing and social distancing to curb the spread of the virus.
The disease has so far infected more than 18,000 people and claimed 117 lives in the West African nation.
- AFP
