Outgoing Sierra Leonean envoy calls on Prez Mahama
President John Dramani Mahama says Ghana is proud of the role it played in rolling back the Ebola Viral Disease in Sierra Leone. He said the country’s intervention in the fight against the deadly disease had paid off with the declaration of Sierra Leone as Ebola-free.
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The President made the point when he received the outgoing High Commissioner of Sierra Leone in Accra, Mr Osman Foday Yansaneh, at the Flagstaff House last Wednesday.
The envoy was at the Flagstaff House to announce the end of his tour of duty.
President Mahama said: “Today we can look forward with the hope that we have managed to defeat the disease and we can move forward in progress and prosperity.”
Ghana’s contribution
President Mahama, as Chairman of ECOWAS, visited Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea in September 2014, at the time the international response to the disease was very minimal.
Most countries had then imposed a travelling ban on the three West African nations.
The visit was to assure the leaders and people of those countries that Ghana was with them in the fight to defeat Ebola.
During the visit, the President presented quantities of relief items for distribution to victims of the disease.
The Ghana government also agreed to the setting up of the United Nations Mission on Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER) Logistics Centre in Accra, from where medical supplies reached the affected countries from other parts of the world.
President Mahama said Sierra Leone was becoming the fastest-growing economy in West Africa until Ebola broke out, adding, “I am confident that Sierra Leone would bounce back.”
Diplomatic relations
Touching on relations between the two countries, the President said they had been long and fruitful and expressed the hope that they would continue to grow.
He called for an increase in investments between Ghana and Sierra Leone.
President Mahama encouraged Mr Yansaneh to remain “a good ambassador of Ghana” wherever he was posted to.
Outgoing envoy
Mr Yansaneh, who spent eight years in Ghana, thanked President Mahama and Ghanaians for the tremendous assistance and support the country continued to offer Sierra Leone.
He said Ghana was one of the countries that did not impose travel bans on Sierra Leone during the Ebola outbreak.
The outgoing envoy mentioned President Mahama's personal involvement in the quest to help his country tackle the Ebola outbreak, as well as peacekeeping services and the excellent services many Sierra Leoneans received when they were transferred to the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital for referral services.