Hon Jerry Ahmed Urges Mahama to Use Flood Funds for Sanitation, Says Weija Women Bear the ‘Painful Strikes

Second Deputy Minority Whip and Member of Parliament for Weija Gbawe, Hon. Jerry Ahmed Shaib, has expressed deep distress over the impact of recent floods on women traders, and has called for urgent sanitation measures to avert a cholera outbreak.

Speaking on the situation, Hon. Shaib said: “If you were with me this morning and yesterday you'd have wept. I saw older women who have to sweep at all costs just to save their lives. We got windows were forcefully broken just to pull people out. We got I've visited homes that people lost their lives just because water submerged their homes.”

He noted that all the homes he visited “are the homes of women,” adding: “So they always go through all their thing. While pregnant they go through pains, while I was delivery they go through pains and when it comes to situations like this they are the ones who are confronted with very painful strikes.”

The Weija Gbawe MP said the focus should go beyond market women to include traders and hawkers who lost goods stored at home. “Those who are selling pampers those who are the kind of wears they have they have bought and they have kept in their homes as hawkers,” he stated. “At at a point I just told them that I do not know what to do anymore and that's the truth. Because these are women who may have just gone to solicit for funds maybe through a loan system or any loan facility just to come and do this trade.”

He added that many may be single mothers “taking care of their own children with no husbands or no men in their lives,” and are now unable to sleep because “their mattresses are all wet.”

On relief efforts, Hon. Shaib said he had personally given “eleven thousand cedis” and mobilized others to support, while providing churches, mattresses, rice and meals to displaced persons. “It's not enough. But I just started with a conversation that I think we should all look at critically,” he said.

He also raised sanitation concerns after the floods saying Everywhere is filled with filth and squallowed. So after my round the first thing I did was to go to the municipal office. The most important thing is to see how these garbage are all cleared. Else you can be thinking of the next disaster. Cholera will be all over the place. We need to fumigate almost everywhere.”

Hon. Shaib called for non-partisan action and backed the President’s commitment to funds for preventive measures, saying: “My my hope and prayer is that will be used for the same purpose.”