Its survey analysed data from Kenya, South Africa, Sierra Leone, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. In the countries surveyed, only two per cent of funds went to support workers in the informal sector, even though they often make most of the workforce. It found that 63 per cent of Covid-19 relief funds went, on average, to big businesses in eight of the nine surveyed countries, while only a quarter of the funds went to social protection, all in lack of transparency and accountability. This opacity is partly due to most international monitoring systems looking at initial funding announcements rather than tracking the actual disbursement of funds, it says. Last year, the National Treasury and local lenders opened a credit line to bail out small businesses affected by Covid-19.

Source: The Star April 27, 2021 00:56 UTC