Since the sudden easing of a three-week lockdown in Ghana’s two major cities, Accra and Kumasi, daily life is gradually returning to normal.

Markets and commercial districts that had ground to an eerie halt have buzzed back to life. Stores and banks have slowly reopened. Modest traffic jams have emerged as many people who had escaped the lockdown return to the cities. But schools, places of worship, restaurants and bars remain shut.

The reaction to President Nana Akufo-Addo’s unexpected order to ease restrictions two weeks ago has been mixed.

Among the west African country’s corporate workers and affluent classes, many people continue to work from home and fear that the easing of the lockdown is premature.

From his apartment in Accra’s affluent East Legon, 30-year-old Delvin Cooper, who works for digital creation firm Pulse Ghana, worries that the severity of the coronavirus outbreak has not fully registered in the country.

“The government should have waited at least a little bit longer,” he said. “People still haven’t got the actual understanding of what the situation is.”

However, for millions of people living on the edge, working in Ghana’s largely informal economy, each day of the lockdown deepened their worries.

Outside a small factory in a quiet neighbourhood in northern Accra, Raphael Awitor, who is in his 40s, stirs sand and cement with a shovel. Toiling in the blazing sun, he races to make as many bricks as possible. On good days he can earn 80 cedis (£11).

“I planned to come to work on Monday whether or not the lockdown was lifted,” Raphael said. “We were really hungry.”

He had become desperate after quickly spending his savings of just 300 cedis.

Ghana’s government has halved electricity costs and cancelled water bills for three months, and distributed food supplies to ease the effects of the lockdown. But the help has not reached everyone, Raphael laments. “I didn’t even see the trucks that were sharing it.”

Nearby, Nyamekye Agyemang, 55, sets her steel pots containing wraps of fufu, banku and a mix of stews on small stools in a wooden kiosk, waiting for custom from construction workers and passers-by. Food vendors were permitted to work during the lockdown but the impact on her income from reduced footfall was immense.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/