The Finance Minister has revealed that the government mobilised an amount of GH¢18.19 billion cedis in 2020 to mitigate the impact of Covid-19 on businesses and ensure the recovery of the economy.

He said the amount of GH¢18.19 billion was mobilised from various funding sources such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other institutions.

“Mr Speaker, to mitigate the impact of the pandemic on businesses and households, ensure that economic activities recover and minimize job losses, Government mobilised GH¢18.19 billion out of the programmed GH¢19.3 billion in 2020 from various funding sources,” he told Parliament on Wednesday.

He also disclosed that an amount of GH¢19.3 billion was programmed as budget support to recover the economy from the impact of the Covid-19.

The programmed GH¢19.3 billion comprised of GH¢1.2billion Government of Ghana Contingency Fund, World Bank Group Fund of GH¢1.3 billion, IMF GH¢1billion programme, African Development Bank GH¢405 million, European Union ¢504 million and a ¢10billion Bank of Ghana Bonds.

Addressing Members of Parliament on the Covid-19 expenditure in 2020 and 2021, Wednesday, Ken Ofori-Atta said an amount of GH¢1,203,715,085.77 from the Contingency fund of Government was used to finance the Covid-19 Alleviation Programme in 2020.

He added that the government also secured an amount of US$230 million from various facilities under the World Bank for the implementation of Emergency Preparedness and Response Plan by the Health Ministry.

Out of the amount secured, the Minister said US$35 million was used to finance the Fast Track COVID-19 Facility, US$65 million for the Greater Accra Resilient and Integrated Development (GARID) Project and US$130.0 million in November 2020 to strengthen and scale up the Emergency Preparedness and Response Plan by the Health Ministry.

He said government also programmed to expend an amount of GH¢11.16 billion for COVID-19 in 2020 with an amount of GH¢8.14 billion to account for shortfalls in revenue generated for the COVID-19 expenses.

According to Ken Ofori-Atta, the government had to source additional funds for the GHC19.3 billion programme support received for Covid-19 in 2020.

“Mr. Speaker, in addition to all the above sources of funds, other funds were sourced to support the budget. These include the US$1 billion from the International Monetary Fund, GH¢10 billion from the Bank of Ghana, US$69.3 million from African Development Bank and US$99.7 million from the European Union (EU),” he stated.

All these sources of funding to finance the COVID-19 measures, Ken Ofori-Atta said “excludes funds of the National COVID-19 Trust Fund and the Ghana Private Sector COVID-19 Fund.”