By Fola James
Nigeria and other sub-saharan African countries must do everything to contain the corona virus pandemic before the end of June this year, failure which can lead to the loss of a whopping $200 billion in revenue, the International Monetary Fund has said.
According to a recent research published by Papa N’Diaye, IMF’s Head of Research in the Fund’s African Department, COVID 19 has already slowed down the economies of these countries and the situation could get worse if allowed to drag into the second quarter of 2020.
The researcher said funds should be pumped into the health sector to make sure the pandemic in contained in time.
He said all projections by SSA countries for higher income has been dashed by the novel virus, that less income is expected “relative to what they were expecting 6 months ago.”
IMF said the projected income loss this year will be higher than the previous year when $100 billion was lost by countries in the region, adding that failure to contain the virus will have devastating effects on the SSA’s health care systems and the economies.
Sub-Saharan Africa, the researcher said “is facing an unprecedented health and economic crisis that threatens to reverse much of the development progress it’s made in recent years.”
For Nigeria for instance, the Fund said the fluctuations in the price of crude oil in the international oil market will shatter government revenue expectation.
Serious progress was already being made by SSA countries to improve their economies before the COVID 19 pandemic crept in, it said.
From all indications “the region was making significant progress towards achieving its sustainable development goals. There was progress in improvement of education, reduction in poverty from 60 percent in early 2000 to 40 percent, which is still high but some improvements there.”
The way out. The IMF said SSA countries must focus on basic economic interventions such as cash transfers to the poor and expand support for Small and Medium Scale businesses, SMEs, post COVID 19.
