The Trade Union Congress wants the Ghanaian government to inject $3billion into the economy, here’s why

The TUC said that research conducted by its Labour Research and Policy Institute shows the adverse effects of the virus on jobs and livelihoods in both the formal and informal sectors of the economy.

Director of Labour Research and Policy Institute at the TUC, Dr Kwabena Nyarko Otoo, told Accra-based Citi FM that said the government must do more to manage the effect of job losses and also revive the economy.

“One of the things we did was to estimate the loss of GDP that we are likely to experience because of COVID, and our estimation is based on the data provided by the Minister for Finance when he told Parliament that the 2020 GDP growth which was initially estimated at 6.6% will now be 1.5%. When we look at the numbers, we are looking at an output loss of about 18 billion, and our proposal is for government to find the resources that will fully restore us in terms of the output loss so we are asking the government to invest about 18 billion Ghana Cedis into the economy between now and December,” he said.

All sectors of the economy have been hit since the novel coronavirus outbreak. Employers have had to let some of their workers go or slash their salaries. Business owners are making little or no profit.

People have lost their jobs or are battling with the possibility of becoming unemployed if the pandemic goes on for a long time.

Already, the International Labour Organization (ILO) has predicted that 25 million jobs are threatened by the pandemic.

This is not the first time TUC is making such a call.

In April 2020, the TUC and the Ghana Employers Association, called on the government to ensure that it provides stimulus support to cover big businesses amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Currently, the government has also set aside a GHC600 million soft loan scheme with a two-year repayment plan for small and medium scale businesses.