Thapelo Phukubye: Exclusive: AfCFTA Boss Covid-19 saga: hotels allegedly conniving with KIA staff to give positive test results

Friday, April 30, 2021

Exclusive: AfCFTA Boss Covid-19 saga: hotels allegedly conniving with KIA staff to give positive test results

African Entertainment has gathered that medical staff at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) who are in charge of coronavirus testing of passengers arriving into Ghana are allegedly conniving with big hotels to ‘force’ false positive coronavirus test results on some travellers, especially big businessmen and women.

Following the Ghana Health Service (GHS) denial on April 29, 2021, that the Secretary General of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretary General Wamkele Mene received a fake covid-19 test result at KIA as alleged by AfCFTA Secretariat in Accra, African Entertainment decided to conduct an independent investigation into the matter.

During the investigation, African Entertainment got hold of Mr. Mene’s laboratory test result from The Trust Hospital Company Limited. The Trust Hospital Company Limited gave a negative covid-19 test result for Mr. Mene. His age as captured on the test result from the Trust Hospital was 44 and the result showed that his blood sample was collected on April 24, 2021 and result was given same day.

African Entertainment further took upon itself to check for the authentic test result of Mr. Mene from the second health facility he visited to conduct covid-19 test. That health facility was LEDing Medical Laboratory.

The result showed that Mr. Mene blood sample was taken by LEDing Medical Laboratory on April 23, 2021. His age matched with the age on The Trust Hospital form.

LEDing Medical Laboratory equally returned a negative test just as The Trust Hospital Company Limited did but strangely, it was only at the KIA that Mr. Mene got a ‘positive’ test result.

Sources who pleaded anonymity told African Entertainment that despite the denial by GHS, KIA staff were allegedly conniving with hotels to give positive test results.

One deep throat source told African Entertainment that “it is an entirely profitable business between the hotels and KIA where businessmen and other persons are given positive test results upon arrival into Ghana and then asked to go quarantine at the hotels. It’s a way for the hotels to make money.”

Again, sources say travellers who arrived in Ghana are “falsely given positive covid-19 test results” but cannot afford hotel bills are forced to quarantine at the Patang Hospital.

A source who claimed to have suffered similar fate told African Entertainment that sometimes “about 15 persons are forced in one room at Patang Hospital to quarantine,” raising health concerns.

Sources say a lot of the positive covid-19 test results from KIA are grossly inaccurate and purely come with business motive by hotels and KIA staff.

AfCFTA Boss case in detail

The Ghana Health Service had dismissed claims that the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) produced a false positive coronavirus test for the Secretary-General of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), Wamkele Mene.

It would be recalled that the Secretariat of AfCFTA, issued a statement in Accra a few days ago, alleging that a false positive coronavirus test result was produced for Mr Mene.

In a statement, the Secretariat said
a routine antigen test was performed on Mr Mene at Kotoka International Airport upon his return from a mission outside Ghana, which came out positive.

Following the initial positive test result, the Secretariat indicated that Mr Mene took precautionary steps and went into quarantine.

“His medical team advised him to undergo further independent PCR tests. Consequently, His Excellency undertook two independent tests from two different private labs. Both independent PCR tests returned a negative result, clearing the Secretary-General of COVID-19,” the statement noted.

“It appears that the COVID-19 antigen test that was conducted at the airport produced a false positive result,” according to AfCFTA Secretariat.

But the Ghana Health Service in a statement signed by its Director General, Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, says the claim by AfCFTA Secretariat was “not accurate.”