300,000 businesses benefit from covid-19 stimulus package – GEA
The Ghana Enterprises Agency has indicated that more than 300,000 businesses have benefitted from the GHS 650 million covid-19 stimulus package established by government.
According to the Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Enterprises Agency, Kosi Yankey Ayeh, the agency was able to able to process over 900,00 applications that sought assistance from the program aimed at supporting firms affected by the covid-19 pandemic.
“The first announcement was ¢600million and all the funds there, have been utilized to support the businesses. Over 500million plus were really injected in providing access to finance to businesses to build them and some of the funds were also used to provide technical assistance across the nation.
“So if you look at the data of the numbers of what we’ve able to achieve with that, is that we have over 300,000 people who were able to access these funds from micro, small and medium in every region and district,” she said.
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The COVID-19 outbreak reduced productivity, caused job losses and a steep decline of revenue for government, businesses, households and individuals, hence, support for the sector will enable businesses to grow and expand to create more jobs.
The COVID-19 stimulus package is a GHS 600 million soft loan scheme to be disbursed to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic. The loan is expected to have a one-year moratorium and a two-year repayment plan. It was announced by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
The GHS 600 million government soft loan facility is expected to have a one-year moratorium and two-year repayment period, which businesses has touted as an initiative in the right direction to lessen their burden, amid coronavirus lockdown.
