Disburse to us World Bank funds as grants to do business – Market women tell Akufo-Addo

Market women in the Madina enclave have called on President Akufo-Addo to provide them with grants to expand their business.

For some, the grant is to help them re-start trading activities in view of the fact that, their businesses collapsed during the peak of the Covid pandemic when the 2-week lockdown period was instituted by government.

In an interaction with BudgIT Ghana during a Townhall meeting held on Monday, October 3, 2022, market women in Madina quipped funds from multilateral lender, the World Bank, should be given out to them as grants to undertake their trading business.

This is because, they are unable to go in for loans from financial institutions to re-start or expand their businesses given the high interest rates charged on the loans.

“The lockdown was very difficult for us, it was difficult to feed because we weren’t selling due to the restrictions and that resulted in the collapse of our businesses.

“We don’t usually get loans and even when we do, the interest rates are too high so much that we can’t pay. In our opinion, the President should disburse to us as grants funds gotten from the World Bank to revamp as well as expand our businesses,” said Maria Nurudeen, deputy leader of the market women of Madina market.

Speaking further, she expressed concerns about the high cost of living conditions in the country, urging the President to quickly resolve all economic challenges bedevilling the economy and necessitating the current harsh economic conditions being experienced by Ghanaians.

The World Bank during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, made available to Ghana some $430m in support of the country’s fight against the pandemic.

The money provided by the World Bank was largely for communication and sensitization campaigns, masks and vaccine procurement, equipping labs and new facilities to receive patients, among others.

The funds were not necessarily meant to be used as grants to support dying local businesses.

The government however, on its own volition, disbursed some GHS 600m in soft loans through the Ghana Enterprise Agency (GEA) to local businesses in order to aid businesses withstand the adverse impacts of the pandemic.

The Townhall meeting organized by BudgIT Ghana was aimed at providing stakeholders the opportunity to share experiences about their resiliency adaptive strategies during and post-Covid-19 economic recovery.

It was also to generate a strategic business level discussion data on lessons into future socioeconomic preparedness and response to strengthen business resiliencies.

Additionally, it was also to advocate for integrating community socioeconomic resilience strategies’ adaptation into transparency, participation and accountability frameworks in the utilization of public funds at the national level and local level by BudgIT Ghana.