Coronavirus: GUTA calls on BoG to urge financial institutions to waive loan repayments

The Ghana Union Traders Association (GUTA) wants the Bank of Ghana (BoG) to compel all financial institutions to waive loan repayments for businesses as directed by the government due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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.

GUTA said 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.

In a statement signed by the President of GUTA, Dr. Joseph Obeng said the details of the one billion Cedis that government assigned to small and medium Enterprises and other businesses were not well spelts out.

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.

In addition, GUTA said it is very important that the negative impact, especially on businesses, can be reduced through the humane approach by the Ghana Revenue authorities, Bank of Ghana, Landlords, Financial institutions and above all Government.