Executive Director of Trade-Aid Integrated, Nicholas Apokerah says the government would have saved more jobs and help more Ghanaians to sustain their livelihoods, if the Covid-19 financial support had targeted the hard-hit industries, that provide jobs for many Ghanaians.
He believes that helping the institutions that fall under these hard-hit industries like the hotels, manufacturing, private schools, NGOs particularly the local NGOs, would have empowered them to either maintain their workforce or recall workers that were laid off, due to their inability to pay salaries and other remunerations to staff.
According to him, many Ghanaians have lost their jobs during this Covid-19 period and so have lost their purchasing power and cannot buy items for themselves nor their families.
“What the government did was to disburse small amounts to small businesses and some individual enterprises for production. It is not bad, but if the government had supported the hard-hit sectors to continue to meet the salary of their workers or even part of it, it would have contributed in surging up liquidity in the economy that would have sustain demand and therefore keep the entire economy in motion. Choosing to approach the intervention from the production/supply-side rather than the demand-side may not achieve the desired effect of getting the economy back on track. There is an urgent need to review the Covid-19 alleviation support scheme. Supporting bigger businesses and even NGOs, especially local NGOs, will get many Ghanaians back to work, their employers will be in the position to pay salaries and the workers will then be able to buy items, pay their bills, and settle other financial commitments.
This will bring more money into the system and the small businesses would then do well because people are able to purchase their produce.”
Mr. Apokerah was speaking in an interview with a1radioonline.com in Bolgatanga, in the Upper East Region.
He said there is so much data to be able to assess the salary budget of these hard-hit institutions, and these information are available at institutions like the Ghana Revenue Authority and SSNIT, since most of these hard-hit businesses were formalized.
“If government wanted to have a lasting solution to the job loss and financial hardship facing many Ghanaians, they could have gathered this information for the Ghana Revenue Authority and other public regulatory organizations.”
According to him in other countries, their governments extended support to the citizenry in a way that brought money into their ‘pockets’ to enable them to demand goods and services, which necessarily had the multiplier effect in the production sector.
Source: A1Radioonline.com|101.1MHz|Ghana
