President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has condemned attempts by the global community to single out African countries for the imposition of travel bans due to the outbreak of the Omicron variant of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The President made these remarks following the imposition of travel ban on countries like South Africa, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Eswatini, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia and Tanzania due to the outbreak of the Omicron variant.
“We repeat our firm opposition to all attempts to single out African countries for the imposition of travel bans, as instruments of immigration control, when we are told, for example, that the Omicron variant of COVID-19, which was recently sequenced and reported by South African scientists, was discovered much earlier in the Netherlands,” he said.
Speaking at a joint press conference with the President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, at the Jubilee House in Accra last Saturday, President Akufo-Addo reiterated Ghana’s unflinching support to South Africa and the other African countries, in the common search for an end to the pandemic.
The South African leader, who arrived in the country last Friday and left yesterday, was on a two-day working visit to Ghana to firm up diplomatic and bilateral ties with the Ghanaian government.
A Guard of Honour by a contingent of the Ghana Armed Forces was mounted in his honour at the forecourt of the Jubilee House followed by a 21-gun salute on Saturday morning.
President Akufo-Addo told the media that the purpose of the visit by the South African President was to re-affirm the ties of co-operation and the bonds of friendship between the two countries.
The two leaders discussed at length how to boost further political and economic relations, cultural and people-to-people exchanges, as well as co-operation at the continental and multilateral levels.
Their deliberations also centered on driving investment opportunities, domestic and foreign, into both countries, the realisation of the 17 SDGs, and the need for enhanced co-operation and partnership in the areas of education, trade and industry, agriculture, defence co-operation, immigration, environment, science and technology, petroleum and hydrocarbon activities, and tourism.
Whilst thanking President Ramaphosa and South Africa for supporting Ghana’s bid for the Secretariat of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), and for a non-permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council, President Akufo-Addo reiterated that “Ghana will make sure that Africa’s voice is heard loud and clear in the deliberations of the Security Council, both on matters affecting the continent and on global issues, and we will consult broadly to define Africa’s interests.
“With the continent confronted by multiple threats to the territorial integrity of some of its states, and many of its civilian populations being put under serious threat, President Ramaphosa and I both agreed that now is not the time for the Security Council to reduce its peacekeeping mandates on the continent,” he said.
President Akufo-Addo applauded President Ramaphosa for the efforts he was making to consolidate the peace in the Southern African Development Community (SADC), with the ongoing SADC mission to crush the violent insurgency in Mozambique’s northern province of Cabo Delgado.
He reassured President Ramaphosa of Ghana’s commitment to collaborate with South Africa to find solutions to challenges such as the eradication of widespread poverty, elimination of irregular migration, insecurity and human rights violations, terrorism and violent extremism, human and drug trafficking, piracy, as well as climate change.
“We, in ECOWAS, have much to learn from this, in our own fight against the terrorist threat in the Sahel,” he said.
President Ramaphosa expressed great interest in this fight, and pledged the support of SADC to ECOWAS within the context of the AU,” he said.
Such co-operation, he added, between regional bodies is important for ridding the continent of all the anti-democratic elements who have surfaced, and are seeking to destabilise and threaten the peace and security of Africa, and compromise the efforts at realising “The Africa we Want,” as enshrined in AU Agenda 2063.
President Ramaphosa, thanked President Akufo-Addo and the Ghanaian government for the support.
Later in the evening, President Akufo-Addo held a state banquet for his South African counterpart and his entourage at the Jubilee House.
BY YAW KYEI
