The Ministry of Communications is to roll out a comprehensive digital system to track travelers who would enter Ghana by September 1, 2020, following the President’s announcement to ease restrictions on international travels in the outbreak of Covid-19.
The digital system would also keep track of people who visit public places such hotels, pubs, restaurants, churches, conferences, among others.
This was contained in a Press Statement signed by the Minister for Communications, Mrs. Ursula Owusu-Ekuful.
The digital system was a strategy employed by the Ministry to help the fight against the virus as the country prepares to return all the sectors of economy to normalcy, the statement said.
According to the statement the determination to restore the country to normalcy calls for the need to develop a digital infrastructure to maintain our grip on the management of the virus.
It said it was against this background that the Ministry created a digital system to monitor the movement of Ghanaians and visitors to aid businesses in Ghana to transform Covid-19 crisis to opportunity through technology.
It added that the government intended to make Ghana play a key role in the implementation of the digital infrastructure of the African Union (AU) platform – Pan African BioSurveillance Application (PanaBIOS), in addition to the GHCOVID-1 9 app which is available on both the App Store and Google Playstore to enable the government to monitor the compliance level of the COVID-19 protocols in the country.
It said Ghanaians could make use of the PanaBIOS app or USSD short code 769 to track their movements in and out of public places.
They could also visit the PanaBIOS website (www.panabios.org) or install the GHCOVID 19 tracker app on google play or AppStore on their smart phones, the statement aaded.
It said this would enable the country keep data on the citizens and visitors who patronize public places to help in contact tracing of the Covid-19 cases.
The statement called for awareness creation and mounting of public education campaigns at hotels, churches, conference and exhibition venues to ensure that visitors follow Covid-19 protocols.
Osei Owusu Amankwaah, ISD
