THE GOVERNMENT says the rising cases of COVID-19 being announced in the country are real and have nothing to do with attracting donor aid.
At a press briefing in her office yesterday, information minister Dora Siliya said it was unfortunate that some people could accuse the government of falsifying COVID-19 numbers to attract donor aid.
She wondered what kind of government elected by the people, responsible for the people “can want the country to be ravaged by Corona”.
“The government is announcing numbers as it tests, as we test the people. Now if the Ministry of Health through the Public Health Institute says we have carried out so many tests and these are the people who are sick. Why should we hide those numbers, because tomorrow it could be one of us here as part of those numbers?” she said.
“We are concerned and feel bad for the people who have died from Corona and we don’t want that to happen here. Now we would like to have donations for other things. We don’t want to have an insatiable appetite of receiving donations to be fighting Coronavirus. We wish that it had never even come here at all.”
Siliya added that the Coronavirus not only had the capacity to kill people but to also overrun a whole country and that the government was concerned with the high fatalities in other countries.
“To believe that a government can be wanting donations to ensure that its people continue being sick is just anorexia of the mind,” she said.
“There are a lot of challenges in the country and because of the Coronavirus, the whole education system is being disrupted, health system is being stretched.”
Siliya said while she appreciated that every person had an opinion, people should “use this time to have confidence in ourselves” because every country is affected by the Coronavirus.
©Kalemba May 18, 2020
