The Ghana Union of Traders Association (GUTA) is admonishing its members to ensure strict compliance with the COVID-19 protocols as they conduct their businesses.

According to the association, the call has become necessary due to another spike in the number of cases recorded in Ghana.

In an interview with Citi Business News, President of the Ghana Union of Traders Association, Joseph Obeng, stated that traders will have to abide by the protocols to prevent a re-imposition of restrictions.

“Coming from the year 2020, it has been a very challenging year for us, so frustrating. Most of us have lost our capital because of the first outbreak of the pandemic where we went under lockdown. Business came to a complete halt at a point, and then when we came through, we had elections and just when we are about to settle and take off this year to recoup some of our loses, then there is a new upsurge of the COVID-19 cases which is very worrying to the business community. In fact, we don’t know the way forward.”He further called on authorities to adopt strategies to address these concerns, especially in market places.

“We will plead that we all follow the protocols. I will appeal to our trading community because the way we do trading in the open market where we do not follow the protocols, it will work seriously against us. That’s why I’m calling on the Ministry of Health and the government itself to sit down with the trade leaders to find a way because that is where the problem is.”

Ghana currently has over 3000 cases after recording a significant decline months ago.

A previous spike in the numbers led to a number of restrictions.

They included the closure of schools, lockdown of the epicentres of the pandemic, closure of the countries borders etc

These restrictions negatively impacted several businesses in the country.