President swears in COVID-19 Board of Trustees

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has sworn in an eight-member COVID-19 National Trust Fund and charged them to bring their experience and expertise to bear on their work.

He said they had been chosen to be in the front line of mobilising the funds that would be used in designing programmes to fight the pandemic.

Members

The Board of Trustees is chaired by a former Chief Justice, Justice Sophia Akuffo. The other members of the board are Archbishop Justice Ofei Akrofi, Mr Jude Kofi Bucknor, Mrs Gifty Affenyi-Dadzie, Mrs Elsie Addo Awadzi, Dr Ernest Ofori Sarpong, Dr Abdul Sameed Tanko, and Mr Collins Asare, who is the Secretary to the Board.

Interest

President Akufo-Addo noted that already, the establishment of the fund had elicited a lot of interest from the public.

He said it was a good sign that people had realised how necessary and wise it was for the fund to be established.

Act

He said the law establishing the fund - Novel Corona Virus COVID-19 National Trust Fund, Act 1013 (2020) - provided that all their actions must find space within their achieved status.

He said Section 27 of the Act provided that monies and other resources that had already been contributed to the fund would be transferred into the fund.

He asked the trustees, therefore, to work with the Chief of Staff to have all that had been mobilised to be transferred into the fund.

President Akufo-Addo assured the trustees that the government was ready to provide them whatever assistance they would require for the smooth execution of their mandate.

Trustees

Justice Akuffo thanked the President and the people of Ghana for the opportunity given the board to serve the nation.

She said they were fully aware that the work they were going to do was novel and about a disease that was also novel.

She assured the President that they would hit the ground running and plan for the ensuing days.