We had only two vans to educate public before COVID-19 outbreak - NCCE Boss

The resources constraints of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) have again been brought to the fore as Ghana deals with the novel coronavirus pandemic.

In a period where the state is expected to be increasing awareness about the virus and the measures it has put in place to contain it, the Chairperson of the NCCE, Josephine Nkrumah said her outfit has only two information vans nationwide.

The Commission only recently got a boost to its logistics when the coronavirus pandemic started.

“The Church of Pentecost has given us 12 vans in addition to the two vans we have,” she said on the Citi Breakfast Show on Tuesday.

The vans were distributed to all what was formerly the 10 regions of Ghana with Accra and Kumasi getting one extra van.

“And then we had the two vans that we had also already deployed in inner Accra,” she noted.

The vans have become more critical because the NCCE cannot organise gatherings to educate people.

“Because of the whole issue of social distancing and keeping away from gatherings, most of our education has been concentrated on the media space as well as the vans we use to do the announcements in market places and lorry stations,” she said.

The concern over the resourcing of the NCCE is likely to continue ahead of the elections in December 2020.

Funding from the European Union (EU), which allows the NCCE to undertake some of its activities run out by the close of 2019.

Mrs. Nkrumah earlier noted that about 90 percent of the NCCE’s election-related activities, which mainly covered programmes to educate the citizenry, had been funded by the European Union.

She has in the past, complained that her outfit lacks the requisite resources needed to effectively deliver on its mandate.