Officials insist that the facility was working at full capacity just like any other essential service provider with the necessary safety protocols in place to minimise the risk of infections.

"The terminal has not been shut down; rather we moved to our level two plan for COVID-19 prevention when the presidential directives on travel restriction on people and goods was announced,” the Legal and Permits Manager of MPS, Mr Frank Ebo Brown, said.

A plant operator at the Terminal 3, who allegedly reported sick at a medical facility at Community 11 in Tema, was said to have tested positive for COVID-19 although an initial test for the infection reportedly showed negative.

Uninterrupted services

Mr Brown told the Daily Graphic in an interview last Saturday that the terminal was providing uninterrupted services to customers and business partners.

According to him, although the test results were inconclusive, some workers at the facility, who came into contact with the said operator, had been asked to self-isolate, while the authorities await the Noguchi Institute for Medical Research to conduct further tests on the worker.

Mr Brown stressed that the incident was adequately communicated to the officials of the Tema Metropolitan Health Directorate upon which the MPS requested for verification tests from Noguchi.

Communication

He debunked suggestions that officials of the company failed to report the incident, describing such reports as malicious, as “we have shared our plans with the Tema Port COVID-19 Team”.

“Our staff were notified through a communique while we asked others to also self-isolate to allow for health officials to undertake contact tracing pending the outcome of verification tests,” Mr Brown stressed.

Similarly, he said, the MPS had been engaged in various activities, including constant disinfection of its environment, providing hygiene facilities and products for employees and sharing communication so as to prevent any infection both on the terminal and outside.

The manager gave an assurance that the company would continue to maintain adequate safety protocols and that the terminal should not warrant a closure for business.