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In This Issue...Links to the News:
March 11, 2016
Incentives in the Budget are steps in
the right Direction - Abankroh
Accra, Nov. 18, GNA – Mr Ernest Abankroh, Country Manager
(Ghana) Anglogold Ashanti, has described as a step in the
right direction the generous incentives that were announced
in the 2007 Budget to enhance the performance of the private
sector.
Speaking at the Business and Financial Times 2006 Best
Sector Performance Awards Night, Mr Abankroh said the
ongoing road construction works across the country,
improvement in the telecommunication and port services, and
the tax relieves provided for in the budget were an
indication that government was making good strides to
facilitate the cost of doing business in the country.
However, he said, while the government’s active involvement
in assisting the private sector was commendable, the country
was still not out of the woods yet as far as the cost of
doing business was concerned.
Mr. Abankroh said while private investment remained the main
driving force of the private sector and thrived well in an
environment that was protective of property rights and
supportive of business transactions; it was still
problematic for those seeking to start new businesses.
There are still problems of credit support from the
financial sector, persistent delays in property
registration, availability of quality and affordable labour
and so forth as well as the residual problems in contract
enforcement, processing of licenses and related factors that
tended to engender bribery and corruption.
Mr Abankroh said besides these challenges, the cost in time
and money that various business concerns devote to complying
with regulatory procedures tended to be quite hefty and
sometimes very avoidable without compromising best practice.
On the recent power crisis that had hit the nation, he said,
apart from the destructive effects of power fluctuation and
surges, the dependence of other vital services such as water
and the financial sector on uninterrupted and relatively
affordable power supplies set ripples in the business
environment, which considerably challenge both the local and
foreign investor alike.
Mr Abankroh said the resultant response by companies in
investment in alternative generating sets was not only
expensive but also add considerably to corporate running
costs and other related expenditures given the recent fuel
price hikes.
He urged government to put into operation some of the
established institutional frameworks that were supposed to
engender public-private partnerships to allow power
generation and supply at a fair and equitable cost
nationwide.
Mr Abankroh said the extent to which most of these
challenges outlined was dealt with would go a long way
to determine the success of the implementation of the
intentions of the 2007 Budget.
Mr Franklin Sowa, Business Development Manager of Business
and Financial Times, said the Best Sector Performance Awards
had been adopted as one of the few strategies to offer
healthy challenges that would promote enhanced
professionalism to sustain the country’s economic growth.
He said winners were selected by a committee based on the
extent to which their overall goals and objectives had been
met over the past year, as well as related hallmark
activities initiated by the sectors and the impact of such
sectors on the overall performance of the economy.
Other factors considered are the application of good
management practices within the overall concept of enhanced
corporate governance, output and value contribution to the
particular sector’s quota to the national economy, which
included among others products and services and or monetary
contribution.
Dr Joseph Nnanna, Director General of the West African
Monetary Institute (WAMI), who chaired the function
commended the Business and Financial Times for the
initiative and expressed the hope that all other media
organizations across the sub-region would take a cue from
the good example of the Newspaper to use their medium to
engender good economic performance.
In all, four organizations picked up awards. The overall
Best Sector Performance Award went to the World Bank Group
Ghana Office for their initiative Ghana Marketplace which
generated four billion cedis to support small medium scale
enterprises (SMEs) operators. Other institutions, which
picked up awards, were the Metro Mass Transit Company,
Unique Trust Financial Services and Ghana Institute of
Management and Public Administration (GIMPA).
GNA
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