Gov’t to shut down institutions that do not follow COVID Guidelines

The audit committee shut down the University of Juba as a result of breaching the Corona guidelines.

By Acayo Winnie Cirino

JUBA: South Sudan

South Sudan’s National Taskforce on COVID-19 has threatened to withdraw licenses of institutions that do not follow Coronavirus preventative measures. 

A COVID task force committee began auditing government and private institutions earlier this week to determine whether they are adhering to protocols for preventing the spread of COVID-19. 

The audit committee shut down the University of Juba on wednesday as a result of breaching the Corona guidelines.

Dr. Richard Laku, chairperson of the COVID-19 taskforce audit committee, says despite the recent surge in coronavirus cases, the taskforce has observed that people are not adhering to the preventive measures recently announced by the government and the numbers are going up.

“When you compare with the number of people who are being tested, you will see the possibility rate is very high, so that shows we have a serious transmission happening there.”

Dr. Laku says people are not adhering to the preventive measures. 

“People are not wearing masks; people are relaxing like business as usual.” He adds.

Laku says the committee will enter institutions unannounced to determine if they are following COVID-19 preventative guidelines. He says the audit committee is screening institutions based on generics which promote behaviors that reduce the spread of COVID-19, maintain a healthy environment, and maintain healthy operations, including clean bathrooms.

The committee also visited Vice President Hussein Abdelbagi’s office and the Health Ministry. Dr. Laku says his team realized that staff in both places are not observing all COVID-19 preventative measures.

“We have seen ministry of health also like what we have seen in the Vice (President Abdelbagi’s office) there is no more posters about COVID 19 displayed inside or outside which is very critical, and also when we went in we observed like two staff who were not wearing masks,”

 The health officials also looked at the conditions of toilets in all premises they visited. most did not have tissue papers and sanitizers. 

Dr. Anthony Garang, secretary general of the COVID-19 audit committee, says the panel is working with organized forces to make sure they enforce the rules, especially on pedestrians who don’t wear face masks.

“There will be a day where they (armed forces) will be stationed at the outskirts of the town and then they will ask everybody to put on their masks or they will go back home,” Dr. Garang told The Insider.

Dr. Garang says if the committee determines an institution is not following the directives, it will summon the head of the organization who will be questioned by the National Task Force panel on why they neglected to implement all preventive measures and warns the facility could be shut down.

“The second thing will be suspension of the operation license of that particular facility if it is a business, a shop or NGO or a company, that means closure of business for a specific time.”

“Individuals will also be banned from entering the facility for example if they are not wearing masks,” Dr. Garang says, adding security forces will be stationed at different points to monitor if public transport passengers are wearing facemasks or not. 

He says if they’re not, the driver of the vehicle will be suspended for a certain period of time as a punitive measure.