The Financial Literacy Foundation Africa has called on government to leverage on the opportunity provided by the Covid-19 global economic meltdown to gather data on the informal sector’s micro, small and medium enterprises.

The group added that government should “deliberately vote funds to navigate our local governance structure to the last informal sector MSME worker (just the same way we reach out to every Ghanaian voter for votes) and get this done now and for all.”

This according to the foundation will be a great step in finally formalising the ‘marginalised’ informal sector which contributes about 70% to Ghana’s GDP and accounts for 92% of business in the country.

“We urge the Government of Ghana through the National Board for Small Scale Industries (NBSSI) to use the same importance it puts on finding funding for all expedient developmental needs, even in a time of a global economic distress, to do same for the formalization of the informal sector,” they said in an open letter to Ghana.

The Foundation urged the government to make available funding to the NBSSI to go through every district in all the 16 regions of Ghana through their 100 business advisory centres to get data on all informal sector micro, small and medium enterprises.

They suggested that the NBSSI works with all Trader Groups and Associations, Telcos, Media houses, the Ministries of Finance and Trade, NABCO, MMDA, GRA and the Ministry of Local Government to aid in collecting the necessary data.

This they said would enhance proper economic planning and business development to aid the informal sector take its rightful place as the country strives to attain its Ghana Beyond Aid agenda.

They added that “it will also change our GDP composition construct, strengthen our economic transformation agenda and make Ghana a first-world economy across the Sub-Saharan Region.”

They explained that should their urgent call be heeded to “Ghana’s Informal Sector Pension will change from the current abysmal level of about 1% coverage to the same levels of the formal sector’s tiers 1&2. Same change will be true of Micro Insurance, Micro Credit, and Health Insurance. “

“Ultimately, real government social intervention programmes like the CAP BuSS, Free SHS et al will be rightly targetted and our Country fiscal stance will spare us the usual recurring deficits occasioned by revenue shortfalls.,” they added.

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