The Central Regional Office of the Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) has expressed concern about the blatant disregard for COVID-19 protocols at public places especially pubs.

It described the social distancing arrangements, ‘no nose mask, no entry’ signs, washing of hands, use of sanitizers, staff and security checks as woefully inadequate to sustain the gains of containing the pandemic.

Mr Kwame Gyasi, Regional Director of GTA expressed the concerns after a three-day inspection of some selected facilities across the Region to assess their adherence to Covid-19 protocols.

The move, which was part of a nationwide exercise to enforce compliance took the GTA team to 108 facilities at Winneba, Apam, Mankessim, Gomoa Assin and Cape Coast.

The team found the general Covid-19 compliance level of provision of Veronica buckets, hand sanitizers and checking of temperatures to be 60 percent, but poor adherence to the protocols especially at night where people deliberately disregard the protocols.

GTA also found out that security arrangements to ensure compliance at the facilities were relaxed though many of them have the Veronica buckets and other required items.

He told patrons as well as management to ensure that the staff of the facilities obeyed the protocols and charged facility managers to endeavour to display ‘no nose mask no entry’ signs and ensure people washed their hands and observed the social distancing rules.

In collaboration with other stakeholders, Mr Gyasi indicated that the Authority will not hesitate to apply the law to the latter if managers of facilities were found to have blatantly disregarded strict adherence to COVID-19 protocols to serve as deterrent to others.

He urged stakeholders to strictly abide by the industry and the Ghana Health Service protocols to maintain standards and to help ensure that businesses survived.

He assured of his outfit's support for all players in the hotel and tourism sector to adhere to the protocols and sustain businesses to grow.