As we speak, the novel coronavirus disease is still at it’s peak and shortening the lives of able bodied men and woman. It is quiet sad and in as much as we would love to still have these people around, there is little that can be done.
Coronavirus, according to some theories making the rounds on social media, is a biological weapon that was meant to cripple the economies of certain countries in the world that had a lot of control.
And what we know is that it was first discovered in a town in China called Wuhan, but we cannot tell who the originators or the intended targets were; that is not what we are interested in now anyways.
What we are concerned at the moment is the havoc this thing is causing in a small West African country, Ghana, especially in the education sector.
News reaching depunch.com has it that a “rich” international school in the country, has started laying off its staff. And it’s because they cannot continue to finance the huge monthly wages when they’re not recording any incomes. This school is located along off the Adenta-Dodowa Highway.
In a circular sent to all Faculty and Staff, the Chief Operations Officer explained that due to “the President’s directive to all educational Institutions to shut down and its subsequent effects on the operations of the school, the Board at its meeting held on Sunday March 22, 2020 has directed” that the staff of the school be reduced.
This reduction saw both affected and non-affected staff being paid in full for the month of March 2020, and retained staff receiving half salary from Arpil 2020.
This is just one of the educational institutions in the country out of the lot who have directed a reduction in staff.
Other smaller private educational institutions that are not financially stable have laid off all their staff; both teaching and non-teaching. It is becoming a very worrying pandemic which is causing both capital and financial repercussions.
And apart from private educational institutions, private businesses have been affected immensely and it is only after the coronavirus pandemic is over that we will be able to count the loses in terms of both profits to private businesses and revenue to the government.
Ghana’s confirmed cases of coronavirus keeps ascending with the current count being 204 cases out of which 89 were cases confirmed from the 1030 travelers who were quarantined upon arrival at the airport.
It is very likely that more Ghanaians have been infected but have not been confirmed for COVID-19 due to the lack of resources to conduct mass testing.
Let us just pray and hope that the lock down of the two epicenters “Greater Accra and Greater Kumasi” will help curb the spread of COVID-19 in Ghana.
Source: depunch.com
Ewurama Acheampoma