Business24 Newspaper (April 29-2020)

EDITION B24 | 36

THEBUSINESS24ONLINE.NET

WEDNESDAY APRIL 29, 2020

Banks tighten credit as COVID-19 rages—survey UNIPASS saga: Customs to run parallel systems at the ports MORE ON PAGE 3

Dr. Ernest Addison, Governor of the Bank of Ghana MORE ON PAGE 2

BY NII ANNERQUAYE ABBEY

The Bank of Ghana’s (BoG) latest credit survey has revealed that businesses may have difficulties in accessing credit as banks begin to take a more cautious approach to lending as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The survey, conducted in February but published this

week, showed that banks have started tightening their credit stance—a situation the central bank said will persist for at least two months.

“The February 2020 credit conditions survey round revealed that banks reported net tightening in the overall credit stance on loans to enterprises, except SME loans, with the likelihood of further

tightening two months ahead.

Prospects of further tightening for enterprises seem to reflect banks’ response to the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic,” the survey said.

The tightening credit stance is coming against the BoG’s recent measures implemented to get banks to commit extra resources to businesses that have been hit by the coronavirus.

Cocobod targets improved yields with pruning exercise MORE ON PAGE 5

Examination conundrum

…final year students’ fate still hangs MORE ON PAGE 3 ECONOMIC INDICATORS *EXCHANGE RATE (INT. RATE)

USD$1 =GH¢5.6896*

EXCHANGE RATE (BANK RATE)

USD$1 =GH¢5900.*

*POLICY RATE

14.5%*

GHANA REFERENCE RATE

15.12%

OVERALL FISCAL DEFICIT

6.6% O-F GDP

PROJECTED GDP GROWTH RATE

1.5%

PRIMARY BALANCE.

-1.1% OF GDP

AVERAGE PETROL & DIESEL PRICE:

GHc 5.13*

INTERNATIONAL MARKET BRENT CRUDE $/BARREL

20.46

NATURAL GAS $/MILLION BTUS

1.79

GOLD $/TROY OUNCE

1,703.95

CORN $/BUSHEL

329.50

COCOA $/METRIC TON

2,342

COFFEE $/POUND:

+5.70 ($108.30)

COPPER USD/T OZ.

220.15

SILVER $/TROY OUNCE:

Copyright @ 2019 Business24 Limited.

All Rights Reserved.

Tel: +233 030 296 5297 editor@thebusiness24online.net

16.39

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WEDNESDAY APRIL 29, 2020

NEWS/EDITORIAL

EDITORIAL

WASSCE, BECE test case must be handled with care 1

Wash your hands 2

The fate of West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) and Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) candidates are yet to be determined.

The anxious wait for a decision on when the examinations will take place or the use of a new mechanism for grading these students, brought on by the outbreak of the COVD-19 pandemic, has created uncertainty amongst students and parents alike.

Adopting a workable solu-

tion while protecting our young ones from contracting COVID-19 requires a delicate balance.

Many suggestions as to how to navigate this challenge have come up. Child Rights International (CRI), a campaign group for children, has advised the Ministry of Education (MoE) to consider using the continuous assessment method to grade BECE and WASSCE candidates in the absence of written examinations, which for now remain suspended.

The continuous assessment method is a form of educational assessment that evaluates a stu-

dent’s progress throughout a prescribed course. It is often an integral part of the final examination system.

Currently in Ghana, at the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) level, continuous assessment forms 40 percent of the total examination score, and at the WASSCE level it forms 30 percent.

Using continuous assessment records would remove the burden of MoE and GES having to go through the difficulties of awarding certification and grading students amid the impact of the pandemic, Child

Rights International stated.

Indeed, Education Minister, Mathew Opoku Prempeh, has suggested that if the virus continues, relying on continuous assessment records would be one option to consider in order for final year students of both senior and junior high schools to proceed to the next level of their education.

We call for a workable solution to be found soon so that all concerned would be at ease.

Banks tighten credit as COVID-19 rages—survey (…CONTINUED FROM COVER )

Cover your cough 3

Wear a mask Brought to you by

LIMITED Copyright @ 2019 Business24 Limited. All Rights Reserved.

Editorial Team Dominic Andoh: Editor Eugene Kwabena Davis (Head of Parliamentary Business & Commodities) Benson Afful (Head of Energy & Education) Patrick Paintsil (Head of Maritime & Banking) Nii Annerquaye Abbey (Online Editor) Marketing Alexander Lartey Agyemang (Business Development Manager) Ruth Fosua Tetteh (Dept. Business Development Manager) Gifty Mensah (Marketing Manager) Irene Mottey (Sales Manager) Edna Eyram Swatson (Special Projects Manager ) Events Evelyn Kanyoke (Snr. Events Consultant) Finance/Administration Joseph Ackon Bissue (Accountant)

The central bank last month announced a 150-basis-point reduction in the monetary policy rate and further persuaded commercial banks to reduce their interest rates by about two percentage points.

It also reduced the primary reserve requirements from 10 percent to 8 percent to make additional liquidity available to banks for onlending to critical sectors of the economy, in a bid to moderate the expected

slowdown of economic growth this year.

In addition, the central bank cut the capital adequacy ratio from 13.0 percent to 11.5 percent, aimed at easing prudential regulatory constraints that some banks may face in increasing the size of their loan book.

Banks’ profitability According to the BoG’s latest banking sector report, banks’ profit outturn was stronger in the first two months of the year, with a 38.8 percent year-on-year growth in profits in February 2020.

This was higher than the 31.5 percent growth in the

same period last year, due to significant increases in banks’ income, which outpaced the growth in operating expenses.

The report stated that net interest income grew by 25.9 percent on the back of a 22 percent growth in interest income, higher than the 14 percent increase in interest expenses.

With declining interest rates over the period, growth in interest income and interest expense was mainly on the back of increased business volumes.

Total operating expenses also grew by 18.6 percent in February 2020 compared

with 8.6 percent in February 2019, due to increased staff costs and other operating expenses.

Similarly, total provisions (loan loss provisions and depreciation) recorded a higher growth of 6.5 percent in February 2020 than the 2.2 percent recorded in February 2019.

Analysts expect the industry to experience some of the negative effects of the coronavirus crisis, with the reduced rate of economic activity and increased financial risks of businesses likely to affect banks’ income streams over the course of 2020.

Portuguese community in Ghana supports Ghana Police The Portuguese community in Ghana, as part of activities marking the celebration of the European country’s 1974 peaceful revolution, has donated alcohol-based hand sanitizers and bottled water to the Ghana Police Service.

This community in Ghana, having close to 200 registered nationals, was able to gather a significant amount in donations, and then used the whole amount to acquire bottled water and sanitizers, which they distributed by 7 police stations and the Ghana Army HQ in Burma Camp.

Leading the Portuguese delegation were António

Fernandes, Portuguese Honorary Consul to Ghana (living in Ghana for 38 years) and Miss Diana Lopes (living in Ghana for 7 years). The delegation started loading at 7am and only finished the last police station after 7pm.

They were always escorted by the Police.

During that time, the delegation visited the following Police stations: Airport, Cantonments, Manet, Adabraka, Nungua, Teshie, and Tse Addo, as well as the Burma Camp Army’s Headquarters.

“We are very grateful for this contribution that comes at a pandemic moment where we are all together in this fight against the

Coronavirus,” said one of the Station Officers.

Among the Portuguese companies which contributed to this event were SGCOIN (MEP contractor), NEUCE Paints,

Excelcom (security systems), WorldPixys (Geo data) and EuroActiv (African Real Estate Advisory), as well as many Portuguese private individuals.

WEDNESDAY APRIL 29, 2020

NEWS

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UNIPASS saga: Customs to run parallel systems at the ports

BY PATRICK PAINTSIL

Despite the decision to sever its relations with existing vendors providing customs processing and valuation services at the ports, the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) has issued a new directive asking some of them to continue providing their services until June 1.

This means that the processing of bills of entry (BOEs)—that is, the general information on imported cargo based on which Customs assigns the total value and its corresponding duty payable—will be handled by two separate systems up to mid-year.

A letter from the GRA, signed by its CommissionerGeneral, Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah, indicated: “Effective 28th April 2020 and until 31st of May 2020, all transactions in respect of import/export manifest

can be processed through either Integrated Customs Management System (ICUMS) or Ghana Customs Management System (GCMS) for the Tema Port as well as all other entry points. For the avoidance of doubt, with effect from 1st June 2020, all new transactions without exception in respect of import and export shall only be processed through the ICUMS.” It added: “All existing transactions commencing prior to the 31st of May 2020 for which processing have not been completed in the GCMS (before or after payment of duty) shall be reprocessed through the ICUMS.” A source working with one of the outgoing vendors confirmed to Business24 that despite the full deployment of the ICUMS, also known as UNIPASS, their systems were still active.

“Our systems are active; all

existing declarations are still being processed by us, but new declarations are unable to go through our systems not because we don’t want to, but because government says they should not go through our systems,” the source said.

Reacting to a recent publication that the vendors have shut down their systems, the source indicated: “No, we haven’t shut down. Government has issued a directive that new declarations should not pass through our system but through the new system [ICUMS]. So that is what is happening, but we have not shut down.”

One of the conditions precedent in the contract for the ICUMS is that before Customs’ official deployment of the system, the existing operators, GCNet and WestBlue, had to hand over their systems to the Ministry of Trade.

However, the two entities declined to hand over their “intellectual property” to the government.

IMANI’s strong criticism Franklin Cudjoe, head of policy think-tank IMANI Africa, has warned that the decision of the government to terminate the contract of the current vendors is ill-timed, considering the disruptions it could generate amid the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the economy.

In a petition to President

Nana Akufo-Addo last week, titled “Plugging huge revenue gaps occasioned by Covid-19: GCNET and West Blue remain your best port revenue assurers”, he called for the suspension of the ICUMS/UNIPASS system.

“Covid-19 has erased almost 6 percent of the country’s expected end-year growth of 7.5 percent, leaving in its trail huge gaps in our finances.

Indeed, we are in the worst of times, in choppy waters.

Let us not rock the boat any further,” he said

Examination conundrum: final year students’ fate still hangs

BY BENSON AFFUL

The Ghana Education Service (GES) is waiting on government to approve suggestions requesting that this year’s West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) be cancelled in order for candidates to be graded on their school-level continuous assessment records.

In the wake of the coronavirus-induced closure of schools and disruption to the academic calendar, Child Rights International (CRI), a campaign group for children, has advised the Ministry of Education (MoE) to consider using the continuous assessment method to grade BECE and WASSCE

candidates in the absence of written examinations, which for now remain suspended.

A source at GES told Business24 that a decision to allow final year students to use their classroom grades to access tertiary education in the next academic year is a policy decision that only the government could make.

The continuous assessment method is a form of educational assessment that evaluates a student’s progress throughout a prescribed course. It is often an integral part of the final examination system.

Currently in Ghana, at the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) level, continuous assessment forms 40 percent of the total examination score, and at

the WASSCE level it forms 30 percent.

Using continuous assessment records would remove the burden of MoE and GES having to go through the difficulties of awarding certification and grading students amid the impact of the pandemic, Child Rights International stated.

Some 400,000 Senior High School (SHS) candidates, who are the first graduating beneficiaries of the government’s Free SHS policy, were expected to write their WASSCE from March to June, but the exams were suspended due to the coronavirus outbreak in Ghana.

Education Minister Mathew Opoku Prempeh has suggested that if the

virus continues, relying on continuous assessment records would be one option to consider in order for final year students of both senior and junior high schools to proceed to the next level of their education.

President Nana AkufoAddo has always encouraged beneficiaries of the Free SHS policy to shame critics of the programme by obtaining good grades when they sit for the WASSCE this year.

According to him, the only way beneficiaries can prove the effectiveness of the policy is to work hard to secure quality results when they sit for the examination.

But as it stands, the assessment of performance of the first graduates of the government’s flagship education programme is likely to be affected by the novel coronavirus situation in the country.

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WEDNESDAY APRIL 29, 2020

WEDNESDAY APRIL 29, 2020

NEWS

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Cocobod targets improved yields with pruning exercise

BY EUGENE DAVIS

The Ghana Cocoa Board (Cocobod) has embarked on a mass pruning exercise in major cocoa growing areas of the country as part of measures to ensure improved production of the cash crop.

Cocobod have set a target of producing one million tonnes of cocoa for the 2020/2021 crop season and they remain optimistic of attaining it following the introduction of over 100,000 motorized pruners and slashers for weeding and pruning of cocoa farms across the country.

The move, which is part of Cocobod’s productivity enhancement programme will primarily help to reduce drudgery and introduce modern practices in cocoa farming. Available statistics reveal that less than 5% of cocoa farmers were doing mass pruning.

Dr. Emmanuel Agyemang Dwomoh, Deputy Chief Executive In-Charge of Agronomy and Quality Control, speaking after a tour of some farms in the Western Region, said: “When we remove excess branches, canopies and parasitic plants, it results in aeration of the farms and improves

Dr. Emmanuel Agyemang Dwomoh(middle), interacts with cocoa farmers during his tour

penetration of sunlight to induce flower formation for high yield.

He noted that keeping same farm sizes without expanding them-- which is referred to as vertical progression-and rather observing Good Agronomic Practices (GAPs) of which pruning is key, increases yields.

Some farmers, he noted, are able to increase their yields from three (3) bags per acre to as much as 13 bags on the same piece of land because of effective pruning and implementation of associated good farming practices.

Furthermore, he indicated that, COCOBOD’s introduction of motorized

pruners, which also work as slashers, make cocoa farming less labour-intensive and exciting.

In addition, COCOBOD is providing fuel for the operation of the machines.

He entreated the farmers to join farmer co-operatives in order to access these machines and other cocoa inputs.

On his part, Nana Johnson Mensah, Western South Regional Chief Farmer and member of the Board of Directors for COCOBOD who accompanied Dr. Dwomoh and his team on the tour, encouraged cocoa farmers to handle the motorized pruners/slashers provided

by COCOBOD according to

the operating manual to make the machines last.

“Find means of buying some of the machines on your own to augment what has been provided to enhance your work,” he said.

Describing COCOBOD’s efforts at creating a data base of farmers in order to serve them better, Dr. Emmanuel Nii Tackie-Otoo, Executive Director of Cocoa and Extension Division (CHED) stated that a new programme called the Cocoa Management System (CMS) is being rolled out. The system when completed will offer detailed information on cocoa farmers and would make it easy to provide support.

Dr. Tackie-Otoo encouraged farmers to provide accurate information to officials who come to conduct the exercise to ensure that information gathered would be a true reflection of the farmers’ background.

“This system will eliminate many of your challenges as cocoa farmers and save you the risk of being attacked when suspected of keeping huge sums of money after cocoa sales with the use of electronic payment system. This will enhance COCOBOD’s dealings with farmers and other cocoa stakeholders.

He further advised the farmers to fully observe the safety protocols announced by government in the prevention of COVID-19.

He said constant washing of hands with soap under running water and observation of social distancing in pod breaking is essential.

Mr. Samuel Asare Ankamah, Western South Regional Manager of CHED called on the District Officers and Community Extension Agents (CEAs) to constantly interact with their farmers according to laid down procedures to address farmers concerns promptly.

‘IFAD’s US$40m Covid-19 mitigation fund critical’

BY REUBEN QUAINOO

The UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has committed US$40 million to support farmers and rural communities to continue growing and selling food under its COVID-19 Rural Poor Stimulus Facility.

A farmer at Kintampo in the Bono East and 2019 National Best Agroforestry farmer, Mr. Asare Robben, told Business24 that the funds will help many small-scale farmers buy inputs, such as seeds and fertilizers.

“The planting season is beginning soon and we need inputs, such as seeds or fertilizer but due hardship most of us can’t afford them; I’m pleading with the Government and IFAD to make sure materials needed by farmers reaches us on time and not after the planting season” he said.

Mr. Khwaja Yussif, a

maize farmer in Tamale Lamashegu, in the Northern Region, is equally excited about the financial package which, he said, will enhance the production capacity of smallholders like himself should the money trickle down to them.

Chief Executive Officer for BEIT Farms Mr. Evans Larbi told this newspaper that he was extremely excited about the fact that government would not be the only manager of the fund.

“There are situations where funding of this nature comes in and majority of smallholder farmers don’t benefit; IFAD must keep an eye on how it will be disbursed,” he explained.

President of IFAD Mr. Gilbert F. Houngbo in a press release today said that the new multi-donor fund, which they described as COVID-19 Rural Poor Stimulus Facility, will mitigate the effects of the pandemic on food production, market access and rural employment.

Enhanced production capacity of farmers will be Ghana’s trump card to food security amid the Covid-19 pandemic and beyond

“The Facility will ensure that farmers in the most vulnerable countries have timely access to inputs, information, markets and liquidity” he said.

Mr. Houngbo stated that on

top of its own contribution, IFAD aims to raise at least $200 million more from member states, foundations and the private sector.

According to him fallout from COVID-19 may push

rural families even deeper into poverty, hunger and desperation, which is a real threat to global prosperity and stability.

Mr. Houngbo said many small-scale farmers are unable to access markets to sell produce or to buy inputs, such as seeds or fertilizer; adding that closures of major transport routes and export bans are also likely to affect food systems adversely.

The IFAD president indicated that even before the outbreak, more than 820 million people were going hungry every day; he adds that a recent United Nations University study warned that in a worst-case scenario, the economic impact of the pandemic could push a further half-billion people into poverty” he revealed.

“We received requests from governments in more than 65 countries to help respond to the impact of the pandemic,” he added.

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WEDNESDAY APRIL 29, 2020

Post COVID-19 disaster recovery—starting with a business impact analysis

BY DR. VERA O. L. FIADOR, UGBS

Every organization, whether big or small, goes into operation with a longterm goal of continuity.

In other words, every organization seeks to survive the unknown and stay on into the foreseeable future.

This need for organizational continuity typically requires that organizations have a clear vision for the future and a clear sense of their critical activities that must not be interrupted or must resume quickly after a disaster or interruptions such as earthquakes, floods, fire, IT system failures, key personnel exit or even a pandemic/epidemic.

This kind of organizational planning takes one into the realm of business continuity management and disaster recovery planning.

Even as the coronavirus, code-named COVID-19, continues to sweep across the globe, commerce as we know it has come to a near standstill. Global businesses like airlines as well as cornershops have all been severely impacted. On one hand, the slowing down of commerce is reflecting the cascading effects of the moves by central governments to flatten the contagion - such as closing borders and disbanding public gatherings.

On another front, this financial crisis, which is emanating from a health crisis turned economic crisis, can also be attributable to the change in demand and supply dynamics being faced by businesses as priorities in the population shift and supply chains get disrupted.

These changing dynamics within the business economy have triggered interruptions which are suggestive that business models that worked before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic may soon prove insufficient or inadequate. So as businesses scramble to attain some level of normalcy in the midst of the chaos, a number of issues come to the fore, especially if recovery is to turn out smoothly for affected organizations. One such important issue is the fact that successful recovery after any disaster is not feasible if it is not predicated on a reliable business impact analysis (BIA).

In other words, an organization’s full recovery from such interruptions must be based on a clear understanding of the quantifiable and qualifiable implications of the interruption on the business, in this case, the covid-19 pandemic. A business impact analysis is a systematic process to determine and evaluate the potential effects of an interruption to critical business operations as a result of a disaster, accident or emergency. The ability to quantify and qualify the implications is also dependent on knowledge of the critical activities of the business that determine its survival and as such must be given priority and restored within the shortest possible time after an interruption. At this point, every organization must begin to query whether its knowledge of its missioncritical activities is accurate.

A business impact analysis is thus crucial, not only for putting together a business continuity plan but also important for determining the business units or functions that should be targeted with the limited liquidity available in this

era of COVID-19. Indeed, the insights gained from the business impact analysis provides the organization with a basis on which to prioritize efforts in building an effective business continuity and recovery plan.

By conducting a BIA and putting together a business continuity and recovery plan, the organization is able to make a post disaster recovery that is guided by clear recovery goals and recovery priorities.

Moreover, conducting a BIA ensures that the organization applies resources to mission critical assets and activities while avoiding the unnecessary expense of applying inappropriate amount of resources to less critical areas. Indeed, Peter Drucker’s assessment that you can only manage what is measured holds very true in this case.

It is worthy to note also that while there is the possibility that all business functions may be restored after a major interruption, a BIA helps to determine what constitutes reasonable time for restoration. In other words, it is of no essence to

an organization to eventually restore functions only to come to the realization that restoration came too late and the organization has already proceeded on the path of failure or decline for example.

In conducting a BIA, every organization must therefore have a clear definition of scope, objectives and contents for the exercise.

The BIA must also identify impacts resulting from disruptions, determine how these vary over time and also identify the resources needed for recovery etc. through thorough data collection and analysis.

Knowing interdependencies between functions is also key. For instance, data collected during a BIA might suggest that for critical activity “A”, the maximum tolerable period of disruption is two (2) days.

It may emerge, however, that the maximum tolerable period of disruption for critical activity “B” is one (1) day and which cannot recover without the help of critical activity A. This means that the recovery time objective for “A” will be one (1) day instead of two

(2) days. BIA further reveals dependencies on some resources that are actually linked to a single point of failure. The best principle of all is that, business impact analysis is the most effective way to get the whole organization thinking about the unexpected – and by creating such awareness, there is an increase in the chances of an organization’s survival.

Going forward, organizations must begin to collect and process relevant business data if they are to recover from this pandemic and thrive into the future.

As was succinctly captured in the May, 2017 edition of The Economist - “the world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data”.

Indeed, organizations need data that provides insights for business decisionmaking; data that tells where the market is headed and informs product and/or market development; data to determine the implications of occurrences, data that drives sustainability through effective financial and nonfinancial risk management; data to determine the effectiveness of corporate governance, data to spot the opportunities in the chaos and more importantly data from a business impact analysis (BIA) to drive a full post covid-19 recovery.

Dr. Vera O. L. Fiador, (Mrs.) is a Senior Lecturer, Department of Finance, University of Ghana Business School. Email: verafiador@gmail. com

WEDNESDAY APRIL 29, 2020

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LESSONS FROM COVID-19 PANDEMIC:

Newer ways of drafting force majeure clauses in a contract

BY KWEKU ATTAKORAH DWOMOH

(‌CONTINUED FROM MONDAY’S EDITION)

Force majeure As noted, the doctrine of frustration is a common law doctrine which is not expressly stated in the contract but may be invoked to discharge the contract where the necessary factors are proven to be present.

Force Majeure on the other hand does not originate from the common law. It is expressly provided for as a clause in the contract of which specifies some laid down events which will operate to discharge the contract. Parties to the contract have the liberty to agree on specified events which will be treated as force majeure events. As a necessary indication or circumstance of the force majeure clause in the contract, the force majeure event must be one which ensues as a reason of circumstances beyond the control of the parties.

The circumstances must in addition be unforeseeable, unavoidable and must make the performance of that obligation impossible.

The parties may invoke the force majeure provision to suspend the contract for a short while. However, where the event persists or becomes permanent, either party may terminate the agreement.

Where parties include a force majeure clause in their contract, the court turns to it in ascertaining whether the contract must be brought to an end. This is based on the wording of the force majeure clause, the relevant facts and the events. Thus, parties can either decide to rely on the common law doctrine of frustration which need not be written in the contract to bring their contract to an end or they can expressly stipulate in their contract the nature and calibre of events which will bring their contract to an end by way of a force majeure clause.

In this era where many contracts include force

majeure provisions, the question on whether or not the COVID-19 pandemic will amount to a force majeure event will depend on the interpretation of the provision of force majeure in that particular contract.

Drafting of force majeure clauses in contracts In any contract, when parties attempt at including a force majeure clause (which is highly recommended) some main considerations must engage their interest.

The first is the definition to ascribe to the events which must be construed as force majeure events. Typically in contracts, parties define the force majeure events in either an exhaustive or a non-exhaustive way.

Many contractual parties choose to define their events exhaustively in the bid to prevent either party from having many options to escape contractual obligations. Also, many of the definitions of force majeure events in contracts have excluded specific instances such as epidemics, pandemics and even acts of governments as forming part of the scope of the force majeure events. They probably only

state an act of God as an event without defining it or defining it in a limited manner. After this COVID-19 pandemic, the interests of contractual parties must be steered towards defining the force majeure event extensively and including in the definition, acts of governments, travel bans, forced quarantines, epidemics and pandemics (whether due to natural or man-made causes). Further, the definition must be in a non-exhaustive manner so as to cater for unforeseen occurrences which may ensue.

It must be indicated that the events in the force majeure clause defined must be beyond the reasonable control of the parties. These events must be such that the parties do not have the ability to resist or avoid their occurrence.

Also, the force majeure complained of must have rendered the performance of the contractual obligation impossible and not merely uneasy to perform. The event must not have been caused by a party to the contract whether intentionally or negligently.

A notice requirement

must also be placed in the contract. The party who faces a force majeure event must give, within a time frame to be stipulated in the contract, reasonable notice to the other party of the force majeure event, when it began, the effect it may have on the obligations of that party, the proposed mitigated steps being taken to reduce the impact of the event on the whole contractual arrangement and the estimated length of the force majeure event. The notice requirement of the steps undertaken to mitigate the force majeure event then implies that the parties must also include in their contract a duty on either parties to mitigate/ use efforts in abating the impact of the force majeure event on the contract.

Again, having in view the sudden nature of the COVID-19 pandemic and the abrupt halt it has brought to many sectors of the country if not all, it is then reasonable to now include suspensions and automatic extensions of the contract in addition to termination clauses based on the force majeure events. With suspensions and automatic extensions,

the parties must agree that the period within which the contractual obligations are suspended due to the force majeure event must be deemed to have extended the contract for that same amount of time. In effect, if the force majeure event suspends performance for six months depending on the nature of the contract, the parties must extend the contractual relation for an extra six months to cover the period of suspension.

This however should not prejudice the right of the parties to terminate the contract based on the force majeure event if the nature of the contract cannot permit an extension or even a temporary suspension.

Conclusion Parties to a contract affected by the COVID-19 pandemic which do not have force majeure clauses can rely on the common law doctrine of frustration to relieve themselves of the contractual obligations.

Those with force majeure clauses which do not have definitions to cover such pandemics may consider revising their contracts to anticipate such pandemics.

Friendlier dispute resolution mechanisms must be explored by parties to help in resolving breaches of contracts as a result of such unfortunate pandemics.

For future contracts to be entered into, the parties must be guided by what and how contracts have been treated by the COVID-19 pandemic and must make an extensive force majeure provision to cater for such. It is conceded that depending on the interests of parties in the contract, one party will advocate for a narrower form of force majeure so as to prevent the other party from easily escaping liability under the contract whereas the other party will advocate for a broader approach as proposed. The ultimate resolve lies in the negotiations by the parties and the compromise to be reached.

WEDNESDAY APRIL 29, 2020

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COVID-19, IMPOSITION AND LIFTING OF LOCK DOWNS IN AFRICA:

Disproportionate role of Health, Economic, Social and Colonial factors BY: OPOKU-MENSAH FOSTER ABRAMPA, UGBS

P

rior to the outbreak of the recent n o v e l coronavirus, three human coronaviruses which were studied in detail included HCoV-229E and HCoV-OC43 (known as the causative agents for cold were identified in the mid1960s). The third was more life threatening, SARS-CoV. The current coronavirus was first officially reported at Wuhan in China. As health experts worked to identify the virus amid growing alarm, the number of infections immediately rose to 40. On December 31 2019, China alerted WHO of several cases of the unusual pneumonia in the country. The unknown virus was labeled coronavirus-a virus which belongs to coronavirus family--while the disease was later named COVID19 On February 11. In deriving the name COVID 19, ‘CO’ stands for Corona, ‘VI’ is virus, ‘D’ stands for disease while 19 is the year of the outbreak ‘2019’.

Immediately, the threat of the disease was felt in China, entire Asia, Europe and the world at large. For instance, the first death from the virus was recorded on January 11th 2020. After a case in Thailand on 13th January 2020, the US, Nepal, France, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Vietnam and Taiwan confirmed cases on 18th of same month. By 23rd January, China has started quarantining some cities after an infectious disease expect has earlier confirmed human to human transmission. WHO declared the disease a global emergency on January 30 with a death toll of 170 amid 7,711 cases in China, figures which rose to 304 and 14380 by the close of same week, and spreading to all 31 provinces in China.

The first death outside China was recorded on February 2nd, in Philippines. By 20th February, death toll in china alone was 2,118 with a total number of cases reaching 74,576 while the disease kept spreading to other countries.

By the end of February,

worldwide infections had passed 82,000 with more than 2,800 deaths. On March 11th, World Health Organization declared the disease a pandemic. On March 20th, Global death toll had passed 10,000 while Europe had long become the new epicenter of the disease.

By 27th March, cases surged past 600,000 with close to 30,000 deaths. By the end of March, the US alone reported more than 4000 deaths amid more than 300,000 cases.

By 1st April, there were more than a million cases worldwide with more than 50,000 deaths. The disease was described as the “worst crisis” since World War II by UN chief-Antonio Guterres.

By mid-April, cases have surpassed 2 million, a time when more and more countries were embracing lockdown and those already on lockdown such as France, India etc. extended.

During the third quarter of April, more and more countries began experiencing reducing trends of infections and deaths. Example, “on April 20th, Italy reported its lowest number of deaths in a week, while the country recorded its first drop in the number of people currently suffering from the novel virus since the first infection in February”. On April 24th, Spain reported 367 new coronavirus deaths. This was the lowest daily toll in over a month. In Belgium, the number of people admitted to hospitals fell to lowest in a month. Despite these and other isolated cases of improvements, number of infections and deaths kept rising. Example, as at April 24th, Aljazeera reported on its website that “the disease has killed more than 190,000 people and infected more than 2.6 million” with close to 750,000 recoveries according to data reported to have been taken from the Johns’ Hopkins University.

Meanwhile, testing of an experimental COVID-19 vaccine is said to have begun in Britain.

In Africa, Egypt was the first country to record a

case on 14th February then followed Algeria, Morocco and the rest of the countries.

Today, I can say the disease has spread to all African countries except Lesotho and Comoros. Ghana had its first two cases on 12th March from people who had travelled from Norway and Turkey. Since then, cases kept rising to the extent that within the first 38 days, the country had recorded 1042 cases on Sunday 19th April, 2020 when the president announced the un-shocking figure during his 7th address to the nation.

In Ghana, a lockdown was announced on 27th March (at a time total infections were 137) and was to take effect on 30th March 2020. However, during his 7th address to the nation on the Covid19, the president of Ghana lifted the lockdown at a time when the country’s cases have risen fast to 1042. It is not clear why a lockdown should be lifted rather at a time a lot of academicians and professional bodies were calling for a total lock down instead. Example, a health Economist at the University of Ghana’s Business school (Dr. Abekah Nkrumah) just an hour before the lifting of the partial lockdown hadncautioned against such a decision. The main opposition National Democratic Congress had also called for a total lockdown.

However, in the words of the president, “a careful balance of many factors led to lifting of the lockdown”.

While these factors might be part of a classified political information that cannot be fully shared by the government, the

purpose of this article is to explore some of the possible factors that led to the imposition and lifting of the lockdowns. Specifically, factors examined are: health, economic, social and colonially related.

Health related factors On several occasions during the government’s address to the public on the COVID19, it had been claimed the republic is not waiting for the virus to lead the nation. Instead, the nation will always lead the disease. It is possible therefore those measures taken by the government during the 3 weeks of the lockdown were enough to make the government confident that there is no hope for the upsurge of the disease now or in the future.

Of course in that case, there was absolutely no need to keep on with the lockdown especially when the lockdown was fast draining the resources of the country.

So on one hand, a possible health related reason for the imposition of the lockdown was to help contain the virus and once the virus was seen by the government as absolutely contained after 3weeks, the ban had to be lifted. In this case, the country is not expecting any form of disaster now or in the future even if there will be isolated cases of infections. A section of the society had not shielded from communicating this to the president.

On another hand, a possible health related reason for the imposition of the lockdown was to help contain the virus but the president might have realise the lockdown was not being effective.

The foundation of this argument is that, cases kept rising until we achieved the 1042 case feet within 3weeks. Compared to other African countries, this is an unprecedented defeat by the virus in one breath.

Therefore, the possible argument was that, if after imposition of lockdown, the country was still falling to the virus, then there was no need keeping on with a strategy which especially has enormous negative economic implications.

Nevertheless, the counter argument is this, anecdotal knowledge has it that without the lockdown, matters would have been worse. The argument of lockdown not being effective in containing the disease can therefore be accepted fully if tested evidence to defeat the anecdotal knowledge is provided.

There are still other possible health related reasons.

The WHO has come out with damming predictions.

According to predictions of the World’s health body, about 15000 Ghanaians are going to die from the virus, while 3000000 will be affected. Probably, this is a non-negotiable prophecy, such that, no matter the economic resources wasted, there will be no remedy and no matter how relaxed we become, matters will not be worsened. There was therefore no need to sacrifice the economy for lockdown.

Yet, a possible health related reason is the development of vaccines. Perhaps, the president has been assured vaccines are almost ready for the virus. And perhaps, checks revealed the cost on lockdowns far outweigh the possible cost even if infections rise. The president was therefore triggered by this to save the economy by lifting theban. Once again, if this is the reason, the president should have known that, in Ghana, we normally don’t count our chickens before they are hatched. (to be continued…)

Opoku-Mensah Foster Abrampa, Email:ofostera@yahoo.com, WhatApp: +233247163769

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The End of the US-China Relationship

BY STEPHEN S. ROACH

It didn’t have to end this way, but the die is now cast.

After 48 years of painstaking progress, a major rupture of the US-China relationship is at hand. This is a tragic outcome for both sides – and for the world. From an unnecessary trade war to an increasingly desperate coronavirus war, two angry countries are trapped in a blame game with no easy way out.

A nationalistic American public is fed up with China.

According to a new poll by the Pew Research Center, 66% of US citizens now view China in an unfavorable light – six points worse than last summer and the highest negative reading since Pew introduced this question some 15 years ago. While this shift was more evident for Republicans, those older than 50, and college graduates, unfavorable sentiment among Democrats, younger cohorts, and the less educated also hit record highs.

An equally nationalistic Chinese public is also irate at the United States. That is not just because President Donald Trump insisted on dubbing a global pandemic the “Chinese virus.” It is also because whispers turned into shouts linking the outbreak of COVID-19 to alleged suspicious activities at the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory.

Just as most children are taught that two wrongs don’t make a right, tit-for-tat blame does not justify severing the world’s most important bilateral relationship. But the time for dispassionate logic is over. We must, instead, contemplate the harsh consequences of this rupture.

Both economies, entwined in a deeply embedded codependency, will be hurt.

China stands to lose its largest source of foreign demand, at a time when exports still account for 20% of its GDP. It will also lose access to US technology components required to advance indigenous innovation. And the loss of a currency anchor to the US dollar could lead to greater financial instability.

But the consequences will similarly be problematic for the US, which will lose

a major source of lowcost goods that incomeconstrained consumers have long counted on to make ends meet. A growthstarved US economy will also lose a major source of external demand, because China has become America’s third-largest and fastestgrowing export market. And the US will lose its largest source of foreign demand for Treasury securities, all the more worrisome in light of the looming funding requirements of the biggest government deficits in history.

This rupture does not come as a great surprise. As is the case in interpersonal relationships, geopolitical codependency can lead to conflict, especially if one partner starts to go its own way. And China’s decade of rebalancing – shifting away from exports and investment to consumer-led growth, from manufacturing to services, from surplus saving to saving absorption, and from imported to indigenous innovation – did indeed put it on a very different path.

This turned out to be an increasingly uncomfortable development for a Chinadependent US. Left behind, America felt scorned, and that scorn led first to blame,

and now to open conflict.

The consequences of the USChina rupture go far beyond economics. A decisive shift in the balance of global power, ushering in a new cold war, could well be at hand. Under Trump’s “America First” administration, the US has turned inward, heaping scorn on its once-loyal allies, withdrawing support for key multilateral institutions (including the World Trade Organization and, in the midst of a pandemic, the World Health Organization), and embracing trade protectionism. Meanwhile, China is filling the void, partly by design (through its Belt and Road Initiative, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and airlifts of medical supplies to pandemic-ravaged countries in Europe and elsewhere), but also by default, as the US retreats.

Although these tectonic shifts will leave most Americans worse off, the US seems to be shrugging its collective shoulders.

America First has resonated with widespread wariness of globalization (now reinforced by concerns over supply-chain vulnerability).

Many Americans are angry over allegedly unfair trade deals and practices,

indignant at seemingly disproportionate US funding for institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and suspicious that the US security umbrella in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere encourages free riders and others not paying their fair share.

Ironically, COVID-19 offers an outside chance. Both countries’ leaders would need to end the blame game and begin restoring trust. To do so, they would need to come clean on what really happened in the early days of the pandemic – December for China, and January and February for the US.

Paradoxically, this inward turn comes at precisely the moment when America’s already depressed domestic saving is likely to come under enormous pressure from an explosion of pandemicrelated government deficits.

Not only does that imply deepening current-account and trade deficits (the nemesis of the America First agenda), but it also poses a major challenge to longerterm economic growth.

This is not a time for false pride or nationalistic bluster. True leaders often emerge – or are revealed – at history’s darkest moments.

Is it really too late for Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping to comprehend what’s at stake and seize this opportunity?

America’s public debt-toGDP ratio, which reached 79% in 2019, will now almost certainly go well above the 106% record hit at the end of World War II. With interest rates pinned at zero, no one seems to care. But that’s just the problem: interest rates will not stay at zero forever, and economic growth in an overly indebted US will wither under just the slightest rise in borrowing costs.

Can the broken US-China relationship be salvaged?

Stephen S. Roach, a faculty member at Yale University and former Chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, is the author of Unbalanced: The Codependency of America and China.

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2020. www.project-syndicate.org

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How to develop a COVID-19 vaccine for all

BY MARIANA MAZZUCATO AND ELS TORREELE

In the early weeks of 2020, it started to dawn on people that COVID-19 could be the long-dreaded but expected “Disease X” – a global pandemic caused by an unknown virus. Three months later, the majority of the world’s population is in lockdown, and it is clear that we are only as healthy as our neighbors – locally, nationally, and internationally.

Crucially, we need collective procurement mechanisms that ensure fair allocation and equitable global access to the new vaccines as they become available.

The overriding goal must be to prevent advanced economies from monopolizing the global supply or crowding out demand from poorer countries.

Strong health systems, adequate testing capacity, and an effective, universally available vaccine will be key to protecting societies from COVID-19. But ensuring that no one is left behind requires not just unprecedented collective investment, but also a very different approach.

Researchers at universities and companies around the world are racing to develop a vaccine. And current progress is encouraging: 73 vaccine candidates are actively being explored or are in preclinical development, while five already have entered clinical trials.

These massive efforts are possible only because of substantial public investment, including by the US National Institutes of Health and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). The latter, a publicly funded non-profit organization, was established after the 2014-16 West African Ebola epidemic to drive research and development of vaccines that could be deployed during disease outbreaks.

CEPI has so far received an extra $765 million of a targeted $2 billion in funding for COVID-19 vaccine development from multiple governments.

The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, part of the US Department of Health and Human Services, has invested substantially in vaccinedevelopment projects with Johnson & Johnson ($450 million) and Moderna ($483 million). And the European Union intends to mobilize further public funding to tackle the pandemic at an online pledging conference on May 4.

But investment alone is not enough. To succeed, the

entire vaccine-innovation process, from R&D to access, must be governed by clear and transparent rules of engagement based on publicinterest goals and metrics.

That, in turn, will require a clear alignment between global and national public interests.

The first, critical step is to adopt a mission-oriented approach that focuses both public and private investments on achieving a clearly defined common goal: developing an effective COVID-19 vaccine(s) that can be produced at global scale rapidly and made universally available for free. Realizing this aim will require firm rules regarding intellectual property (IP), pricing, and manufacturing, designed and enforced in ways that value international collaboration and solidarity, rather than competition between countries.

Second, to maximize the impact on public health, the innovation ecosystem must be steered to use collective intelligence to accelerate advances. Science and medical innovation thrives and progresses when researchers exchange and share knowledge openly, enabling them to build upon one another’s successes and failures in real time.

But today’s proprietary science does not follow that

model. Instead, it promotes secretive competition, prioritizes regulatory approval in wealthy countries over wide availability and global public-health impact, and erects barriers to technological diffusion.

And, although voluntary IP pools like the one that Costa Rica has proposed to the World Health Organization can be helpful, they risk being ineffective as long as private, for-profit companies are allowed to retain control over critical technologies and data – even when these were generated with public investments.

Moreover, collective steering is vital in order to select and pursue the most promising potential vaccines.

Otherwise, marketing authorization may go to the best-resourced candidate rather than the most suitable one.

Third, countries must take the lead in building and buttressing manufacturing capabilities, particularly in the developing world.

While an effective COVID-19 vaccine probably will not be available for another 12-18 months, a concerted effort is needed now to put in place the public and private capacity and infrastructure needed to produce rapidly the billions of doses that will be required.

Because we don’t know yet

which vaccine will prove most effective, we may need to invest in a range of assets and technologies. This poses a technological and financial risk that can be overcome only with the help of entrepreneurial states backed by collective, publicinterest-driven financing, such as from national and regional development banks, the World Bank, and philanthropic foundations.

Finally, conditions for ensuring global, equitable, and affordable access must be built into any vaccinedevelopment program from the start. This would allow public investments to be structured less like a handout or simple market-fixer, and more like a proactive marketshaper, driven by public objectives.

Pricing of COVID-19 vaccines should reflect both the substantial public contribution to their development and the urgency and magnitude of the global health crisis. We must go beyond statements of principle and generic pledges, and introduce concrete conditions that enable vaccines to be free at the point of use.

Policymakers should also consider using compulsory licensing to allow countries to make the best use of the available tools and technologies.

The COVID-19 crisis rules out a business-as-usual approach. As countries mobilize collectively against the pandemic through calls for a global alliance, pledging conferences, G20 meetings, and the upcoming annual World Health Assembly, we cannot afford to miss this chance. These collective efforts must include clear and enforceable rules of engagement that commit all partners to an end-toend approach to health innovation based on the public interest: an effective COVID-19 vaccine that can be rapidly made available to all for free.

Developing an effective and universally available COVID-19 vaccine is one of the most critical missions of our lifetime. Above all, it is a litmus test of whether global public-private cooperation, touted by policymakers as the key to success, will maximize the supply of public goods or the share of private profits.

Mariana Mazzucato,

Mariana Mazzucato, Professor of Economics of Innovation and Public Value and Director of the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP), is the author of The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy (Allen Lane, 2019). Follow her on Twitter: @MazzucatoM. Els Torreele is Executive Director of the Médecins Sans Frontières Access Campaign. Follow her on Twitter: @ElsTorreele.

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2020. www.project-syndicate.org

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Creating a learning organisation amidst COVID-19: Managing Change in a pandemic KWESI AMPONSAH-TAWIAH, PHD

The World Health Organisation on March 11, 2020 pronounced COVID-19 a pandemic, having dire consequences for organisations and national economies. The landscape scale of this pandemic has essentially taken away normalcy in human lives and organisations’ operations as evident in the shift in regular behaviours- lockdown of communities, cities and countries; low patronage of general goods and services; massive loss of revenue; employee lay-offs; increased dependency on technologyenabled communication amongst myriad other difficulties. This has indeed upset lives of organisations; bouncing back during and post pandemic has everything to do with effectively managing change and creating a learning organization.

The open system theorywhy organisations are affected

as it impacts on input, throughput (transformation process) and output.

In fact, experts agree that the only changeless entity is the word ‘change’ itself; this underscores the dictum that change is a constant which permeates every facet of life including organisations.

The idea of the Open System Theory (OST) perfectly explains why organisations are not immune to the attendant issues of COVID-19.

The OST holds that an organisation exists as an open system that interacts with its environment.

Thus, there is a symbiotic relationship between the organization and the environment in which they operate. Therefore, a pandemic like COVID-19 represents a pervasive environmental influence which hurls the need for change to organisations

Input references any form of raw materials (be it tangible or intangible) from which an organisation draws to feed its operations. This include human resources, capital, technology, information among others.

Throughput represents the transformational processes through which the inputs are converted into finished goods and service, whereas, output defines the end results of organizations’ conversion processes. As COVID-19 persists, all these production aspects of organisations are affected. For example, there is a general apprehension among consumers which has led to reduced spending apart from expenses on safety gears and food items owing to the need for survival. This therefore shifts

capital investment (input) to food producing companies and manufacturers of protective gears. No wonder most hotels in Ghana are laying-off workers due to low patronage. At the same time, other businesses have quickly adapted by responding to the needs of society in these desperate times. Kasapreko Co. Ltd., for example, has ventured into sanitizer production in response to the crises. There is also an increased dependency on technological gadgets for work execution (throughput) as many employees are setup to work from home. This presents a heavy-toll on workers whose technological inclinations are low. In the end, organisational output suffers due to poor results; and organizational goals and objectives are compromised in the process.

Thus, understanding the

organization as an open system, prepares the minds of management to scan the broader environment for factors with the potential to upset operations and take corresponding measures to survive them.

Organisational areas where change will be most required Inherent in the open system theory is the idea that the organisation is made of subsystemstechnology, task, people, structure and management. These are the discrete yet inextricable parts of organisation that interact to enable an organisation function. Technology refers to the innovative manner, procedures, methods in which work is carried out; task denotes the nature of work activities performed; people represents the nature of members who undertake work activities-

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their personalities, attitudes and skillsets; structure explains patterns and formal relationship with which work is performed; and lastly, management refers to the effective coordination of organisational parts (subsystems) and direction of its activities to achieve set targets. These organizational systems operate jointly such that any change in one produces a rippling or domino effect on others, thereby creating multiple changes through out the organization.

The persistence of the COVID-19 pandemic means that organizations are hard-hit. The major subsystems that will be hit the most are people and technology. The working from home idea is largely a newbie to vast majority of Ghanaian workers. For most employees, working via technological media means a requirement for appreciable technological skills. This most likely demands adequate training for employees who lag behind- people subsystem.

The heavy dependence on technology-enabled work itself signifies a change in task for many employees whose work performance was hitherto manual; needless to mention, that, the varied location (homes of employees) from which work will be performed also has effect on coordination and directing of work (managing people/overall work) and organisational structure under which work is done. This can be weighty for organisations and therefore creates the need for change/adaptation. The need for change therefore affects all areas/subsystems of an organization. In order for organisations to adapt successfully, one thing is instructive- create a learning organisation.

Creating a learning organisation- undergoing a successful change In the August 1993 edition of the Harvard Business Review, David Garvin rendered that, a learning organisation is one that is capable of “... changing its behaviour to reflect new learning and insights”.

Rowley maintained that, a learning organisation is one which is able to inspire and motivate individual learning (change in employees’ behaviour), and harness same to create organisational changelearning and

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organizational change are, thus, two mutually reinforcing phenomena.

Organisations that will prevail over challenges like COVID-19 are those with the capacity to adapt employees’ and organisational behaviour to meet the everchanging environmental demands. Indeed, learning is about change and change is about learning to do things differently. Thus in times like this, organisations ought to create environments that support learning to help employees easily adapt to change. To create a learning organisation, I offer the following features to be in place: Establish a clear and shared vision Whelan-Berry and Somerville noted that, it is highly useful for every learning/change effort to first establish the reason.

In other words, there must be a guiding vision which spells out the need for the change. The vision must describe the desired state of the organisation after the change and inspire a sense of urgency among employees.

Creation of the vision can be done without the mass employees’ involvement; however, it must be creatively communicated to them to ensure their buy-in, such that they assimilate and internalize it, and it even affect their beliefs and values. During a pandemic like COVID-19, an opportunity presents itself for managements to re-echo its organisational vision to its employees to whip-up confidence and forwardthinking attitudes on the job.

According to Kavoor-Misra, a clearer communication of vision deepens the extent to which employees identify with the organisation. This encourages the resolves to learn and adjust to the demands of the crisis.

Discard old ways of thinking and learning from the past It has been said that, “...a people without the knowledge of their history, origin and culture is like a tree without root” (Marcus Garvey)- so is an organisation without sight for its past successes and failures. This is the time for employees and organisations to draw on their past. Avoiding previous work behaviours/ approaches which yielded little or no results and embrace those that brought maximum benefits.

Management may institute an information repository system where strategies that yielded unfavorable results can be recorded to

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guide their future choices and decision. This can serve as institutional memory for the organisation over the long-haul. As noted by Garvin, “those who cannot remember their past are condemned to repeat it”.

Again, management must engage in continuous evaluation of its methods and procedures viz-a-viz prevailing changes in the environment. This will make the organisation come to terms with which aspect(s) of its modus operandi that may be obsolete from time to time, and discard it accordingly. Discarding old ways of thinking makes way to accommodate opportunities to learn new things which strengthen the adaptability of the organisation. Organisations that are determined to survive this pandemic and many other environmental challenges in the foreseeable future must learn to draw on past successes and discard old ways of thinking.

View organization as a system of relationships A learning organization has a thorough appreciation for the organization as a system of inter-related parts. This understanding accentuates the idea that, happenings in one area of the organization has an effect on the other parts. Therefore, in creating a learning organisation, the considerations should bother on all aspects of organisational life (i.e. technology, people, structure, management, and task) as these interact together to make the organisation function. In line with the current COVID-19, for instance, organisations with tall organisational structure (bureaucratic) and have members working from home ought to swiftly adopt a flat organisational structure. Longer chain of commands ought to be discouraged to allow freer flow of communication amongst employees. This largely makes it easier for the distinct parts of the organisation to share information resulting in greater output.

Again, training must be rendered to members to appreciate job done in other departs as this can foster systemic thinking during work execution. It is important to emphasise that getting members of the organization to see the organization as a system enhances learning among members and further ensures the building of synergies for the collective interest of the organisation.

Open communication and innovation

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Kwesi Amponsah-Tawiah,

According to WhelanBerry and Somerville, poor communication is the reason for failure in many organizational learning efforts.

Management ought to deploy effective communication to clarify organisational vision to employees in these COVID-19 times. Again, managements ought to strengthen the implementation of existing policy guidelines on free and open communication among its members. The guidelines should also make provision for feedback system and empower employees to freely and responsibly criticize management where the need be- this will largely encourage organisational learning as noted by Garvin. More importantly, innovation among employees must be encouraged.

Employees must be free to take initiatives and innovate. In line with this suggestion, management should reward intelligent mistakesemployees actions/initiatives originally intended for the good of the organisation but failed. In so doing, management punish intention behind actions not the actions themselves.

Where the intention behind an initiative was ill-conceived, it should be punishable and vice versa. Management should take decisions together with employees and not for employees.

These suggestions will give employees optimum say in decision making; employees will thus, be encouraged to communicate openly their initiatives to help the organisation become a learning organisation.

Work together to achieve vision Lastly, times of crisis like the current pandemic calls for greater unity if the organisation is to succeed through. Carrim and Basson have noted that working together creates a perfect synergy for growth and success in difficult times. Management must encourage free consultation among employees to enable

members draw on each other’s knowledge and experiences.

Employees must be encouraged to offer help to colleagues where need be and, isolated works should be discouraged.

The unity in working together, shared vision, open communication and innovation, understanding organisation as interrelated systems, rejection of old ways of thinking, will contribute to creating learning organisation thereby making it survive turbulent environmental conditions like COVID-19.

Conclusion The 21st century organisation is faced with more challenges than can be envisaged- from political, legal, economic, social, technological, artificial intelligence, to health (as COVID-19) inter alia. These have deepened the competition and will continue to influence the struggle for market dominance among organisations.

Surviving these challenges and succeeding takes unending appetite for learning.

Organisations that seek to navigate the turbulent environment created by the COVID-19 pandemic out to have a strategy that supports learning, redesign the organizational structure to allow for some decision making latitude and the sharing of ideas as well as reshape the culture of the organization to be receptive to new ideas and rewarding intelligent mistakes. These I believe have the potential to generate citizenship behaviors among employees and also unleash their innovative abilities much needed during moments of turbulence.

Kwesi Amponsah-Tawiah, PhD is an Associate Professor of Organizational Development, an applied psychologist and the Head, Department of Organization &HRM, University of Ghana Business School.

E: Kamponsah-tawiah@ug.edu.gh.

T: +233(0)546238672

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The Deadly Urgency of Now

BY GORDON BROWN

The consequences of lapses in international cooperation in combating COVID-19 over the last few months can now be counted in lost lives.

Having failed to stop the first wave of the pandemic, we must not make the same mistake again.

“This is not a discrete oneoff episode,” Wellcome Trust head Jeremy Farrar has warned. “This is now an endemic human infection.”

COVID-19, as Farrar suggests, knows no boundaries, geographic, political, or otherwise. Nor must our efforts to defeat it. No one can be truly safe unless the disease is tackled wherever it takes hold.

To prevent what many scientists now fear – a second wave of the pandemic later this year – we must urgently act where the need is most pressing: in the world’s poorest countries. As Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopia’s prime minister and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has warned, if the coronavirus sweeps through Africa, it will return to haunt us all.

Abiy is not understating the threat. The United Nations estimates that COVID-19 could cost between 300,000 and three million lives in Africa.

Furthermore, as many as 130 million people globally may be pushed to the brink of starvation by a breakdown in global supply chains.

A successful exit strategy from this pandemic requires testing, treatments, and a vaccine. And if developing countries cannot combat the virus effectively, we may be powerless to prevent further outbreaks around the world.

That risk is glaringly real.

Of sub-Saharan Africa’s 45 countries, 34 spend less than $200 per capita annually on health care. In five countries, health spending is less than $50. Countries have little testing equipment, few (if any) ventilators, limited medical supplies, and often poor sanitation and insufficient running water.

Moreover, workers cannot rely on social safety nets to support them during the

pandemic. They therefore face a deadly choice: go to work and risk being struck down by the disease, or stay home and risk being condemned to starvation.

This makes it difficult for these countries to use tools available to richer economies, such as social distancing, lockdowns, and regular hand washing.

If we are to stop COVID-19 in its tracks, our interventions will only be as effective as the weakest link in the global chain. So, if any issue is a candidate for multilateral global action, then it must be our response to this pandemic.

The health of each depends on the health of all. Local solutions everywhere are only as good as the global response.

With this in mind,, we must outlaw the ugly “vaccine nationalism” that seems to be setting in. Restricting new vaccines to those who can afford them will condemn millions to enduring multiple waves of the illness. We must also crack down on medical piracy, whereby a few countries seek to monopolize testing kits, ventilators, and personal protective equipment by whatever means, instead of joining a coordinated international effort to increase their global supply,.

World leaders therefore must decide to finance a collaborative international search for a vaccine and its mass manufacture, and

mount a concerted effort to increase our capacity to produce medical goods.

And they must support developing countries in their hour of greatest need, which is now.

The world’s leading health experts tell us that they need $8 billion this spring alone to help eradicate COVID-19. That is equivalent to just $1 for every person in the world – and a fraction of the estimated $14 trillion that has already been allocated to deal with the pandemic’s consequences. It is shocking that, while we have seen individual and corporate generosity in response to COVID-19, governments have so far been unable fully to fund this global health initiative with even that modest amount.

Indeed, US President Donald Trump has suspended US funding of the World Health Organization. And, following the April 19 virtual summit of G20 health ministers, the US deputy secretary of health and human services could not sign on to a joint statement promising what Trump had already agreed to at the March 26 G20 leaders’ summit: a strengthened mandate for the WHO and sustainable funding for its emergency programs. A watered-down communiqué was issued instead.

Fortunately – and to their great credit – the European Union and five countries (the

United Kingdom, France, Germany, Norway, and Saudi Arabia) have agreed to fill the void, announcing a special pledging conference to take place on May 4. This summit is the right way forward, as outlined last Friday in a mission statement on global health by French President Emmanuel Macron and as recommended in a recent letter signed by 200 economists, health professionals, and former presidents and prime ministers.

And there will be much to decide. Despite help from Europe’s biggest aid donors and Saudi Arabia, CEPI (the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations) is only one-third of the way toward securing the $3 billion it needs to develop, scale up and mass-manufacture hundreds of millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses.

Similarly, while the Wellcome Trust, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Mastercard Foundation have together provided up to $125 million of seed funding to speed the development of and access to lifesaving treatment for the coronavirus, the COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines (ACTIV) plan needs $2.25 billion to make the first 100 million courses of treatment available.

Expert organizations that monitor, improve, and deliver diagnostic tests

around the world, like the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND), also need our support.

My hope is that in the next few days, aid donors from Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea to Canada and Mexico will join the pledging event, thus sending a message that the world will not stand for vaccine nationalism, medical piracy, and a cutthroat race to the bottom. And the United States and China, which have both been helping countries bilaterally, should demonstrate their global leadership by joining the conference, instead of sitting it out.

Gordon Brown, former Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom, is United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education and Chair of the International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity. He chairs the Advisory Board of the Catalyst Foundation.

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APRIL 29, 2020 THEBUSINESS24ONLINE.NET