The Federal government of Nigeria has announced that fully vaccinated travelers coming into Nigeria will no longer be required to take a pre-departure PCR COVID-19 test.
The Chairman of the Presidential Steering Committee, Boss Mustapha, disclosed this during a briefing of the PSC announcing a revision of International Travel Protocols on Monday, March 21.
Mustapha added that passengers who are unvaccinated or partially vaccinated are still expected to take a COVID-19 PCR test 48 hours before departure, or do a Day 2 and day 7 test on arrival.
He stressed that such passengers will be expected to pay for their PCR tests through the Federal Government’s travel platform, while fully vaccinated passengers will not be charged for rapid antigen tests at the airport.
United Kingdom has also stopped the compulsory Covid test for travelers arriving in that country. But Ghana still insists on compulsory testing at the airport and is still charging a whopping $150 for non-ECOWAS citizens and $50 for ECOWAS citizens.
Experts have said Ghana can not afford to review the compulsory test at the airport, particularly for fully vaccinated travelers, and the country has no justification for charging such high fees for the test.
Government has however remained silent on it because the money they make from the airport goes to line private pockets more than goes into state coffers.
In year 2020, over $17 million accrued from the airport Covid testing and the Ghana Airport Company got only $1million of that money, while the contractor, Frontier Health Services kept a whopping $16million plus.
