Following the outbreak of COVID-19 and its economic impact in most parts of the world, there has been the need for Ghana’s economy to recover after it was slowed during the three weeks of partial lockdown.
In effect, an Economist and lecturer at the University of Ghana, Dr. Adu Owusu Sarkodie has said that Ghana’s economy should be picking up gradually following the government’s continuous easing of COVID-19 induced restrictions.
Dr. Sarkodie is optimistic that economic activities will fully bounce back as some businesses have been given the green light to resume their operations. However, he maintained the need for government to spend in critical areas of the economy to lessen the negative impact of COVID-19 on vulnerable businesses is key.
The three-week partial lockdown was intended to limit movements to trace, test and treat persons who had contracted the coronavirus. In March, Accra, Tema, Kasoa and Kumasi, were put under a partial lockdown for three weeks as a measure of controlling the spread of COVID-19.
Additionally, many businesses were forced to close down due to the nature of their operations; a situation that brought a stand-still to some businesses in the country.
Even though the restrictions have been eased, many businesses are still struggling as recent reports by the Ghana Statistical Service show that over 70 per cent of micro-businesses folded permanently and temporarily during the partial lockdown. Also, the situation led to the loss of jobs of about 42,000 individuals during the period of the partial lockdown.
According to Dr. Adu Sarkodie, whiles he spoke in an interview expressed optimism that the gradual easing of the restrictions will revive economic activities gradually.
“Once we’re able to go back to church, once the number of congregations has been increased you expect more inflows for the church secretary for them to pay the pastors and other church workers. And also, I’m sure some churches were at the verge of doing some projects, maybe church buildings or school buildings.
“Whatever investment projects they were doing, now they can continue with those things so it’s a very good idea for us. Now there’s the open-air bar then we have the visiting of tourist sites, these are all good for the Ghanaian economy so the strategy is excellent. We are fighting both the pandemic and economic crisis.”
On the other hand, Dr. Lord Mensah who is also an economist said he believes the easing of the restrictions could have come earlier period.
“The easing of the system for me is even too late…If you look at the COVID-19 and its impact on our economy, I don’t think decision-makers have even given us that room to believe that COVID-19 is impacting on our economy. If you take the budget that was read and then the review that came up recently, clearly with the projections they’ve done, for the next half of the year, it gives you the signal that probably COVID-19 is not having an impact on our economy”, he said.
