According to him, it was worrying that a high number of the section of public has a negative perception about the vaccines and has refused to be vaccinated.

“It is unfortunate that people have the perception that their manhood will reduce, they cannot give birth or the Europe­ans are trying to reduce the number of Africans on earth,” he stated and urged Ghanaians to debunk the misconceptions.

Alhaji Asei made these statements in Koforidua at the opening of a four-day annual conference for Accountants and Internal Audit Professionals within the public health sector.

The conference was organised by the Health Accounting Staff Association of Ghana (HASAG) on the theme: “Manag­ing the effects of COVID-19 on Health Service Delivery, the Role of Finance and Internal Audit Service Professionals”.

Drawing participants from all over the country, the conference was to enable the association members to take stock of pre­vious year’s activities and address inherent challenges facing it and plan for the future.

The Deputy Minister stated that COVID-19 has threatened several econo­mies, adding that Ghana like several coun­tries was not prepared for the pandemic.

“However, since the virus has entered the country, there was the need to salvage the lives of the citizenry and hence these vaccines have been procured.”

He said the leadership example set by President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Ad­do, who went for the vaccines should serve as encouragement for all Ghanaians to take advantage of.

Giving statistics data on the pandemic, the Eastern Regional Minister, Mr. Seth Acheampong, said according to the WHO report on COVID-19 as of November 2, this year the country recorded 130,077 confirmed cases, 1175 deaths compared to 243 million confirmed cases and 4.9 million deaths worldwide.

He noted that to save the lives of the people, vaccines were procured by the government for the pandemic and that vaccination exercises were going on to have all persons vaccinated against the virus, adding that COVID-19 was real so everybody must make the effort to be vaccinated.

The National Council Chairman and Deputy Director of Finance, Ghana Health Service in the Eastern Region, Mr. Michael Kyei-Mensah, called on govern­ment to ensure that salaries of accountants and Internal Service professionals working in the public sector were at par with others in other sectors.

“We are appealing to government that as the law demands in the Public Financial Management Act, all of us should receive same salaries and so we ask that we are all migrated into the public sector under the Controller and Accountant General so that there will be no discrimination in terms of salary,” he said.

The Deputy Controller and Accountant General, Mr. Wisdom Komlan Messan, ad­vocated the need for finance professionals to embrace technology in their work due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The National President of the HASAG, Mr. Sidik Mohammed Nuri Laskaya, advised members of the association to en­sure they abide by the standards and ethics of the profession, adding it would create a good image of the association.

FROM AMA TEKYIWAA AMPADU AGYEMAN, KOFORIDUA