The outbreak of the novel coronavirus also known as COVID-19 on the 31st of December 2019 in China, has fast become a global pandemic of which Ghana is not an exception. The IMF estimates the impact of the virus will be a global recession like the levels seen in the financial crisis of 2008 (a 2.5% contraction) and at best a no growth in 2020. This has major implications for Ghana, as government revenue from falling oil prices and demand will impact both fiscal policy and private sector productivity.
WHO reports that a total of 12,425,672 cases have been reported of which 557,925 people have died globally as at 8th July 2020. Cases in Ghana have risen from 2 on the 12th of March 2020 to 23,463 as of the 10th of July, 2020. With evidence of community spread of the virus confirmed, industry watchers remain concerned about the pace of growth of Ghana’s cases and the possibility of reaching levels seen in Italy where cases rose from 2 to over 80,000 in less than two months. A situation that has brought both the Italian economy and the health system to its knees.
The Government of Ghana has indicated that it is highly under-resourced to handle this crisis from its current budget provisions and is exploring the procurement of a facility of USD1bn from the IMF. Ghana remains unsure when these funds will be available. With Government revenue targets reported to have been missed partly as a result of the impact of the virus, prospects of a successful sole government funding to fight COVID-19 remains bleak and extremely burdensome. It is for this reason that the Ghana COVID-19 Fund (herein called “The Fund”) is being established to raise funding from the private sector to support the Government of Ghana’s (GoG) effort to win the COVID-19 war.
To partly finance GoG’s interventions and equip select health service and supply chain facilities and activities in the fight against COVID-19
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