COVID-19 economic updates is a daily update from Ghana

20 April 2020; 21-day partial lockdown lifted, Businesses back to work, Movements eased, Ghana’s Coronavirus cases hit 1,042..

20 April 2020; COVID-19 Economic updates, 21-day of partial lockdown lifted, Businesses back to work, Movements eased, Ghana’s Coronavirus cases at 1,042..

COVID-19 Economic updates
Government lifts lockdown and ban on movements for businesses to operate. Ban on public gatherings still in force and issues new directive to wear masks in the country (President’s Speech)
Ghana’s Coronavirus cases reach 1,042, 9 deaths, 99 recoveries. Community to imported cases are 77percent and 23 percent respectively. The largest infested age groups are 35 – 44 more males have been affected that women. The higher numbers are not necessarily new cases but due to the rather aggressive testing and tracing procedures. Ghana is the number one in Africa in terms of people tested per a million people.
Global cases now at 2.4 million, deaths are 160,000, with 615,000 recoveries (worldometer.info/coronavirus)
5 local companies have earnestly begun production of PPEs for country (President’s Speech)
Local banks to release some GHS 3billion to support industries, especially, the pharmaceutical industry (President’s speech)
Relief from electricity bill is expected to reach GHS 1 billion. This would be funded with the IMF facility and the remainder used to support budgetary expenditure for 2020 (President’s speech)
The police at Lakeside Estate arrested 19 persons last Saturday, for breaching the restriction orders of the lockdown president and the social distancing protocol.
2.5 million cooked foods were distributed to vulnerable persons in Greater Accra and Kumasi, while raw food were distributed to 450,000 families (President’s speech)
Government has announced the removal of all charges on Cargoes that have been at the ports since the lockdown of parts of the country to control COVID-19 in Ghana.
Some staff of the Tema General Hospital (TGH) are threatening to abandon post as management conceals information on colleagues who have tested positive to COVID-19.
Despite the withdrawal of the new levy on LPG in Ghana, consumers are still being billed to pay, that is according to the Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC) and the LPG Marketers Association.
The levy which was introduced by the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) was expected to make LPG operators charge 13.5 pesewas extra for each kilogram of gas purchased. This move was met with a lot of public outcry, requesting stakeholders to cancel the levy.
The high cost of internet service in Ghana during this time of the coronavirus outbreak poses a challenge to businesses and Ghanaians in general as they deal with the effect of the pandemic. CEO of Hubtel Ghana, Alex Bram
As part of measures to ensure traders and buyers adhere to social distancing protocol and reduce over-crowding in the various markets, the Sunyani Municipal Assembly has demarcated specific areas in the Municipality for the populace to buy and sell.
Work has commenced to establish virtual offices for 300,000 public sector workers to utilize a platform dubbed “smart workplace project”. The initiative is being carried out by a collaboration between the Ministries of Communication and Finance and the virtual platform will soon be made available to all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) across the country.
The Kpando Circuit Court in the Volta Region has fined a pastor and two others for defying the Presidential directive on public gathering. They were fined GH¢36,000 for breaching the Imposition of Restrictions Act, 2020 (Act 1012) for holding a service at the Church of Pure Christ in Peki.
The Bank of Ghana (BoG) has donated an amount of GHC10 million to the COVID-19 National Trust Fund.
A 28-year-old UK-based Ghanaian nurse lost the battle to Coronavirus shortly after she tested positive for the disease. According to reports, Mary Agyeiwaa Agyapong was heavily pregnant and underwent a caesarean section to save her daughter. Although it is not clear if the baby has tested positive for the virus, reports say she is “alive and being cared for.”
Director of Business Operations at the Dalex Finance, Joe Jackson has advised the general public not to go into long term banking investments at the moment as the COVID-19 pandemic wreaks havoc on the economy.
The Somey Traditional Area in the Ketu South Municipality of the Volta Region has hinted of plans to create a local buffer stock of food to guard against possible food shortage due to the COVID-19 pandemic. They predict a possible shortage due to the closure of the Ghana-Togo border.
All major global financial markets begin to inch up on the flattening of the COVID-19 curve in countries that have been mostly hit
US deaths go past 40,000. New York registers almost half of the death toll with more than 742,000 coronavirus infections reported countrywide.
It took only four weeks for the U.S. economy to wipe out nearly all the job gains in the last 11 years.
Many media workers have been infected with COVID-19 while working in the field, without any safety measures in Pakistan
South African Airways is nearing collapse and planning to fire all staff with one-week wages for each year of service. The company has been struggling before the outbreak which has aggravated their woes.
Consumer-products giant Procter & Gamble Co. reported its biggest U.S. sales increase in decades as Americans stocked up on household mainstays like toilet paper, laundry detergent and cough medicine as the coronavirus pandemic spread across the country (wsj.com)
Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro fired his health minister on Thursday after a series of disagreements over government efforts to contain the new coronavirus. “I just heard from the President Jair Bolsonaro the news of my dismissal from the health ministry,” Luiz Henrique Mandetta posted on his verified Twitter profile.
The ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID) has donated US$250,000 to the Ghana COVID-19 Trust Fund established by President Akufo-Addo to mobilise resources towards containing the spread of Coronavirus in the nation.
More on COVID-19 Economic update in Ghana coming up