About 48,998 businesses in the manufacturing sector of Ghana closed down when the country went into a three-month lockdown.

This was revealed by government statistician Professor Samuel Kobina Annim.

He explained that the COVID-19 lockdown period saw businesses being either permanently or temporarily closed down across the country.

“From a business closure point of view, during the lockdown period, specifically in the month of April, that is, when the government imposed mobility restrictions on the first three weeks of the month of April, we saw 48,998 firms in the manufacturing sector that closed down.

Giving further highlights at a press briefing in Accra on the true extent of closures of businesses months after movement restrictions were lifted, Professor Kobina said the accommodation and food sector recorded 29,599 closures at the end of the lockdown period.

“Also, 29,599 businesses in the accommodation and food sector closed down during the lockdown and 16, 965 businesses closed down in May and June,” he said.

He further noted that about 770,000 workers (25.7% of the total workforce), had their wages reduced and about 42,000 employees were laid off during the country’s COVID-19 partial lock-down.

Despite some respite granted businesses by the government with the ¢600 million stimulus package, close to 131,000 businesses revealed they still had challenges accessing finance with over 60 per cent calling for subsidised interest rates.

The samples for the research were extracted from the Ghana Business Register, Non-farm establishments from Ghana Living Standards Survey and National Board for SMALL Scale Industries.

Data was collected between May 26 to June 17, 2020, with a targeted sample size of 4,248 businesses.