• Friday, March 29, 2024
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BusinessDay

Covid-19 is a drain on Kano economy – Ganduje

Kano State has not been spared the ravaging impact of the raging Covid-19 pandemic, which has wrecked economies globally.

According to the state governor, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, one of the areas where the effects of the pandemic are most pronounced is in the reduction of the quantum of financial resources available for effective governance in Kano State.

Ganduje made this disclosure during a sensitisation workshop on the second wave of the pandemic organised for journalists and other media stakeholders at African House section of the Kano Government House, weekend.

The governor, responding specifically to BusinessDay enquiries during the meeting, said although the state currently lacks quantitative data to estimate the actual cost of the impact of the pandemic on the state’s economy, the economic cost could be put at several billions of naira.

Read Also: COVID-19: Nigeria’s infection rate slows to 3 weeks-low at 964

“At the moment, on subjective basic, I can confirm to you that the impact of the pandemic on the economy of the state is very huge. I used the word subjective because the means of arriving at this conclusion was not based on quantitative measurement,” Ganduje said.

“But if we are going to quantify the cost using the man-hour being wasted daily by workers in both public and private organisations, I can authoritatively tell you the cost runs into billions of naira. The cost is inclusive of many businesses that have been forced to shut down their operations as a result of the pandemic,” he said.

Speaking on the measures adopted by the state to tackle the second wave, Governor Ganduje said the state is planning to establish a Covid-19 Marshalls that will be charged with the enforcement of Covid-19 protocol as a way of upping compliance.

He noted that the Covid-19 Marshalls would be working with security operatives to enforce the protocol.

Providing insight on the second wave of the Covid-19 being experienced in the state, Tijjani Hassan, co-chair, Kano State Technical Response Committee on Covid-19, said the new variant of the virus is yet to be detected in the state.

According to him, November 22, 2020, to January 22, 2021, additional 957 Covid-19 infections were diagnosed in the state, bringing the cases to 2,730.

Over the last few weeks, the sample positivity rate increased to 12.7 percent, compared to the overall positivity of 4.2 percent, he said.

Hassan disclosed that the number of cases on admission, both on home-based care and hospital admission, stands at 325.

He further said that a total of 19 deaths were recorded between December and January, of which 57.3 percent were partly managed by private facilities.