The Corporate Relations Director of Guinness Ghana has said that government’s support to Small and Medium Scale Enterprises through the COVID-19 Alleviation Programme (CAP) will, to some extent, help lager companies since they can continue to supply to their clients in the value chain.
“As a business operating in Ghana, we are an enabler to a wide variety of businesses so if you look down our value chain, from the farmers that we source locally from, to our key distributors like wholesalers and retailers, these are more SMEs so for us we are looking at a situation where the government’s stimulus package will benefit our value chain.”
It can be recalled that the government introduced the CAP to support businesses which have been impacted negatively by the pandemic. As a result the Ghana Statistical Service surveyed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on business in the country. The GSS revealed that, even though COVID-19 negatively impacted businesses in general, SMEs were the hardest hit. This is because several SMEs have folded up as a direct result of the pandemic.
Sylvia Owusu-Ankomah in an interview indicated that, this could be resolved if support to SMEs is sustained since large companies rely on small businesses such as retailers.
The Corporate Relations Director expressed hope that, the easing of COVID-19 restrictions may also provide some respite to beverage producers to sustain production.
She added that, producers of beverages in the country serve a broad array of businesses and as such they create thousands of jobs through those value chains.
Sylvia said SMEs that beverage producers rely on, especially, the agriculture sector for primary resources such as cassava, sorghum and sugarcane, were badly hit by the COVID-19 pandemic hence require sustainable government support.
In Ghana, drinking spots, pubs, hotels, night clubs and recreational centers are the main consumers of finished products from beverage companies.
Most of the restrictions imposed by government to curtail the spread of COVID-19 saw the temporary closure of the aforementioned businesses. As a result, demand for beverages reduced drastically.
During this period, many employees have lost their jobs.
According to Sylvia, Guinness Ghana did not lay off any of its workers. However, some were made to work from home to enhance social distancing.
She added that, but for the employees working in the factory, the company long before the announcement of a partial lockdown in March, asked its entire administrative staff to work from home.
According to some experts, working from home in itself is a skill that must be properly executed to ensure efficiency.
She explained that some staff were provided with special equipment to enable them to work efficiently from home.
“We gave our staff laptops and data to be able to work from home. At Guinness Ghana the safety of our workers is the first priority.”
For the beverage industry, the players in the value chain, particularly the farmers and businesses in the hospitality industry are essential if the customer is to be satisfactorily served.
Therefore, the existence of these businesses cannot be underplayed if the country is to have a vibrant beverage industry.
