Lack of serious practical short-term solutions to fix the ailing Ghanaian economy is having untold hardships on many companies and their employees.
Most companies including some major media houses are passing through a survivalist phase as they are struggling to pay their employees’ salaries.
Information gathered by Business Day has indicated that thousands of workers of these institutions including Precious Minerals Marketing Company (a state-owned company) are without their salaries for up to five months now.
The exact reason is the bad economy and no money syndrome in the system. The situation is forcing many business owners to lay off workers, thereby contributing to the already worsening unemployment situation of the country. Recently, a young but promising Ghanaian owned bank, Biege Bank, is reported to have sacked 500 workers since the beginning of June 2018.
Unpaid bankers, journalists, business executives, nurses and other professionals now turn to anything from taxi driving to petty trading to survive.
Salary delay has become very rampant to the point that borrowing from friends and family to supplement the absence of salary has become a commonplace.
“I live on borrowing,” Yusuf Mohammed, an investment banker admits.
He continued: “I keep borrowing from friends. I have to borrow to survive until my salary is paid one day. So I will not have anything left and then I have to borrow again even if the salary is paid later.”
Johnson Badu, corporate executive at a mining company is in the same boat.
“I have to resort to borrowing from my family and close friends,” he stated, adding that, ‘I also do some painting at the weekends [to make ends meet] It’s so frustrating and what we are experiencing now…if one is not careful it can lead to hypertension. It’s seriously affecting me now.”
Mr Badu, who has a wife and three kids, is tired and exasperated because he hasn’t been paid his monthly salary since January this year.
Virtually every Ghanaian is lamenting about something at the moment. Everybody is crying for money. Businesses are running at a loss, thereby unable to employ more people.
Expectedly, the aforementioned issues have generated many reactions, but only very few responses. The present economy is really hurting Ghanaians and foreigners.
Ghanaians are looking up to the President Akufo-Addo-led government to urgently introduce measures to address the situation. The prevailing harrowing economic atmosphere is a great test of the NPP administration’s capacity to govern effectively and solve problems lying before it.
By Sheila Williams
