Some 15,174 have fully reopened through support from family relations and the hope that business will pick up soon.

About 1,318 businesses though reopened have not been able to operate at full capacity.

These were the findings from the third wave COVID-19 Business Tracker by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Bank.

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency on the findings, Mr Francis Bright Mensah, Project Coordinator for the COVID-19 Business Tracker, said most of the businesses that had reopened did so through funds received from family and friends.

Others reopened with the hope that there would be a turnaround in economic activities.

He said it was the desire of the businesses for the Government to put in place policies for them to have access to loans with low interest, cash transfer as well as access to new credit.

Commenting on the development, Dr Priscilla Twumasi Baffour, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Economics, University of Ghana (UG), said the COVID-19 remained a challenge to many businesses despite the country’s efforts to manage the impact.

She said the findings meant: “A lot more people have lost their jobs when COVID hit and still have not been able to get back onto the labour market, and it tells on the level of unemployment that was published in the recent census report.”

The 2021 GSS Population and Housing Census found that the labour force [economically active persons 15 years and older] of 11,541,355 had 1,551,118 unemployed, with 9,990,237, employed.

Dr Baffour said the economy was still racing behind the impact of the COVID-19 and urged the Ghana Enterprises Agency (GEA) to identity the peculiar challenges facing SMEs and provide them with the necessary support.

She said: “The support may not necessarily be finance,it could be in the form of business support services...”

On the part of the businesses struggling to reopen, she said the business environment had become dynamic, therefore, “businesses ought to innovate and take advantage of opportunities that the pandemic brought.”

Other findings from the business tracker showed that there had been a considerable decline in the rate of hours worked, wages, and leave without pay over the three data collection periods in 2020-2021.

Meanwhile, the use of mobile money (MoMo) among firms for sales was on the ascendency.

The GSS noted that: “Data compared to Waves I and II, revealed almost seven out of 10 firms are now using mobile money to do business, with MoMo usage increasing from 35.7 percent and 53.4 percent (Waves I and II respectively), to 69.6 percent (Wave III).”

It also observed that more businesses were adopting the use of internet for sales.

That, Ms Angela Lusigi, the UNDP Resident Representative in Ghana, said required that the country reimagined the development in the digital age, noting that it was encouraging seeing more firms embracing digitalisation as a default to improve business.

She said: “UNDP remains committed to supporting Government’s digital agenda and recovery efforts to accelerate the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).”

Mr Pierre Laporte, World Bank Country Director for Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leon, said: “The improvement recorded over the periods is remarkable, but we also need to pay attention to the policy supports required by the firms.”