Following reports that some security personnel are curtailing the movement of employees of various companies due to the implementation of the partial lockdown, the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), says it is taking immediate steps to provide its members with appropriate forms of identification.
The two weeks partial lockdown on Accra, Tema, Kasoa and Kumasi, which enters day four on Thursday April 1, 2020, has to a large extent restricted movement and affected nearly every activity.
But the Chief Executive Officer of AGI, Seth Twum Akwaboah, told Citi Business News attention needs to be given to the entire value chain when it comes to identification, to ensure that essential goods and services get to the final consumer.
“Those who don’t have, we have decided to make an arrangement that within this short period, we can actually issue the ID cards for especially the SMEs who are allowed to operate but do not have ID cards. Let’s also bear in mind that we are not only talking about the factory side; but also the entire supply chain because if you produce without having the supply chain; you can’t bring it to the market.”
“For the production, the transporters must be able to transport the goods to the wholesalers, and it then must be given to the retailers so that the chain must work, otherwise we can’t get the food and the essentials to the shops, to the markets or to the places that the general public will have it. Therefore, the exemption is not only limited to the factories that are producing. It is also the entire chain. But of course, you must be related to the product that you are talking about,” he noted.
The Association has however advised larger companies that are yet to provide proper identification for their employees within the two-week partial lockdown to do so without delay.
