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Ebola's Impact on Sierra Leone's Once Flourishing Business Sector
Sierra Leone?s horrific Ebola outbreak is a humanitarian and health disaster which is impacting all aspects of society and daily life. Sadly, recent reports and projections indicate that the worst is far from over....
?Our juice factory, which buys fruit from more than 5,000 small farmers, has been shuttered since August for a variety of reasons ? nearly all Ebola related,? said Shafer during an email interview. ?My COO and Chief Technician ? both expatriates ? have evacuated the country and have no immediate plans to return. Checkpoints and new public transit restrictions have greatly increased the time and cost for my employees to reach the factory. Banks and other critical businesses are no longer open for a full day making even the simplest tasks extremely difficult to complete. As a result of all these issues, our 125 highly capable local employees are unable to make fruit juice products for our customers in Europe and throughout West Africa.?
Shafer?s situation is not unique. Nearly all ?non-critical? expats have evacuated the country, meaning that most businesses requiring any kind of international managerial assistance have either halted operations or are functioning at a fraction of capacity. Employee wages are either being temporarily reduced or completely eliminated via layoffs. Africa Felix has thus far been able to avoid drastically reducing its own workforce, but Shafer stated that any deepening of the crisis will certainly force the option to be reexamined....
Business planning and investment decisions are very difficult in an environment where the World Bank is projecting widely divergent scenarios with possible 2015 regional GDP losses ranging from $1.6 billion to $25.2 billion ? two very different outcomes with very different business responses.
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Sierra Leone?s horrific Ebola outbreak is a humanitarian and health disaster which is impacting all aspects of society and daily life. Sadly, recent reports and projections indicate that the worst is far from over....
?Our juice factory, which buys fruit from more than 5,000 small farmers, has been shuttered since August for a variety of reasons ? nearly all Ebola related,? said Shafer during an email interview. ?My COO and Chief Technician ? both expatriates ? have evacuated the country and have no immediate plans to return. Checkpoints and new public transit restrictions have greatly increased the time and cost for my employees to reach the factory. Banks and other critical businesses are no longer open for a full day making even the simplest tasks extremely difficult to complete. As a result of all these issues, our 125 highly capable local employees are unable to make fruit juice products for our customers in Europe and throughout West Africa.?
Shafer?s situation is not unique. Nearly all ?non-critical? expats have evacuated the country, meaning that most businesses requiring any kind of international managerial assistance have either halted operations or are functioning at a fraction of capacity. Employee wages are either being temporarily reduced or completely eliminated via layoffs. Africa Felix has thus far been able to avoid drastically reducing its own workforce, but Shafer stated that any deepening of the crisis will certainly force the option to be reexamined....
Business planning and investment decisions are very difficult in an environment where the World Bank is projecting widely divergent scenarios with possible 2015 regional GDP losses ranging from $1.6 billion to $25.2 billion ? two very different outcomes with very different business responses.
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