A former Chief of Staff during the Mahama government has said Ghana needs a well-structured Covid-19 management taskforce in order to defeat the virus.

Prosper Bani, the Chair of National Democratic Congress’ Covid-19 Technical Team, said a properly structured taskforce is what can save the country from further implications of the pandemic.

“Initially, the epicentre was only restricted to Accra, Kumasi, and its environs, but today it has gone up to the Northern part of this country with the Oti and other Region having significant increases as well...This is because something is not going right,” he said.

Speaking on JoyNews' Newsfile Saturday, Mr Bani indicated that the country needs to elevate the management process of Covid-19 from a taskforce committee approach to a crisis management approach, with a clear command structure as in other jurisdictions.

We need "a clearly defined crisis management team, institutions and facilities that will confront the pandemic and a well-defined information centre that will transmit information to the citizens," he said.

Prosper Bani said Ghanaians "need to know who is in charge, so that whenever we hear that voice we know we are getting the correct and accurate figures, analysis of the data, and impact of Covid-19 on the people."

According to him, failure to implement these will lead to a defeated battle against the virus.

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“This crisis is going to be with us for the long. Indeed during the last broadcast of the president, he was noted for the first time to have described the situation as ‘a war-like’ situation. A war-like situation needs a warlike response.

“Granted that we don’t have the military in any battle with anyone, the pandemic if you consider it as an enemy force, must be dealt with as an enemy, he said.”

Data on Ghana’s rate of Covid-19 infections shows the country’s case count has peaked, a top official of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) has said.

Director of Public Health at the GHS, Dr Ebenezer Badu Sarkodie, said on Tuesday that the rate of infection is yet to decline, but this will only happen if the preventive protocol for the virus is adhered to.

Meanwhile, Ghana confirmed 921 new cases of Covid-19 Friday, raising total cases to 4,012.

Mr. Bani blamed the government for the increase in the cases.

He said that implications of the pandemic could have been minimised, but for government's delay in decision making on some matters.

"I'll like to stay upfront that we can do better. The management of this pandemic in Ghana can be structured better.

"The closure of borders was delayed, which opened up space for a lot more people who have been infected from other jurisdictions to come into Ghana.

"Obviously we all are aware of the processes that took place; the quarantine, the testing, and subsequently the contact tracing.

"At that point, all managers of the crisis of this nature would have begun to project the manner in which these cases will increase but we didn’t see any of those projections", he said.