The Ghana Union Traders Association (GUTA) wants the Bank of Ghana to compel all financial institutions to waive loan repayments for businesses as directed by the government.

The Finance Minister announced in Parliament on Monday, March 30, 2020, some fiscal measures to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

They include granting a six-month moratorium on principal repayments for selected businesses.

To this end, GUTA said: “Without necessarily spelling out the details of the measures, we like to single out the granting of principal repayments for selected businesses. We believe BoG should have that stronger oversight to ensure that all financial institutions will implement this directive for all businesses to bring the needed relief to all distressed businesses at this time.

“GUTA, however, notes the timely presentation of this statement to parliament.”

Explaining further, the statement said: “It is very important that at this time of our lives as a people, every effort should be made to ensure that the negative impact on especially, our businesses, can be reduced through the human approach by our revenue authorities, Bank of Ghana, landlords, financial institutions and above all the government.”

GUTA lauded President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and the government for their fight against COVID-19 to ensure that the impact on businesses is lessened.

But while doing so, it advised the government to have the members of GUTA and the trading private sector in mind as far as any stimulus package is concerned, since majority of them are in the small and medium enterprises sector.

“GUTA will continue to advise all her members and the trading private sector to adhere to all the directives of the government and to continue to follow the precautionary measures put out by the health ministry bearing in mind that yes, the economy can be fixed but not our lives, should we lose it”, the group added.