GIPC goldmine deprives Ghanaians of jobs, creating mass employment for expats
Next time you hear a State official singing any tune on government’s intent to create more jobs, ask whether it is jobs for Ghanaians or foreigners. This is because ongoing investigations by this paper into activities of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC), the nation’s statutory body tasked with its investment drive, has revealed worrying accounts of a nation bent on rendering its own employed citizens unemployed, while working to ensure the employment of a number of foreigners and their small-scale family-owned businesses with little investments in the country.
Evidence abounds to show that the GIPC has over the years played a lead role in collapsing many small to medium scale indigenous enterprises by either licensing or looking-on as foreigners moved into sectors of the economy reserved by law for Ghanaians.
Despite the fact that Section 18 of the Act establishing GIPC states that the “the sale of anything whatsoever in a market, petty trading, hawking or selling from a kiosk at any place is wholly reserved for Ghanaians,” the GIPC has not worked with the law.
Businesses activities of certain women at the famous Makola Market have thus not been spared the unemployment creation efforts of the GIPC, as it has watched on as foreigners, mostly Chinese and other Asian traders, invade Makola and other commercial centres solely reserved for Ghanaians, and take indigenes out of businesses.
Today, the Chinese and other Asian counterparts have virtually collapsed Ghana’s thriving textile companies through the importation of cheap materials, which according to a recent BNI report sighted by this paper, are brought into the country through illegal routes and sold cheaply on the Ghanaian market.
They have equally drove a number of women out of business by taking over cloth and textile retail activities at places such as Makola.
Not enough, the GIPC has also been creating massive unemployment for low-skilled Ghanaians by allowing some expatriate-owned companies to bring down family members from their home countries to take up jobs performed by low-skilled citizens, leading to a situation where a number of such indigenes have been thrown out onto the already-choked unemployment market.
Worryingly, the GIPC has also not spared the skilled Ghanaian from its unemployment creation activities.
Dossiers available to GYE NYAME CONCORD reveal that contrary to its own law, the GIPC has over the years sanctioned the arrival of foreigners with questionable skills in Ghana to take up job portfolios many unemployed graduates could easily fill.
While the arrival of the so-called foreign skilled labour have been questionable in the light of the massive unemployment rate in Ghana, this reporter can reveal that it has also been in flagrant violation of the laws of Ghana.
Numerous documentary evidence in the hands of this reporter (see some of the scanned documents) show that contrary to its own enabling act, some officers of the GIPC have been selling employable quotas beyond the legally mandated allocation to a number of expats-led or expats-owned companies.
This has led to a situation where some companies have brought in more than 100 expats into the country with the connivance of officials of the GIPC, and in clear violation of the GIPC Act.
Despite statutory requirements under Ghana’s investment law, Act 487, that companies with paid-up capital of $10,000 (9,300 GHC at an exchange rate of 93 pesewas to one dollar) to $100,000 (93,000 GHC) are entitled to a maximum two foreign staff, some staff at GIPC have been manipulating the law to raise the foreign quotas of some companies, resulting in companies that should have a foreigner in the country bringing more than 15 expats.
Some companies have even brought in more than 100 foreigners into the country, with little or no evidence of those brought in leaving the borders of Ghana.
Under the GIPC Act 478, Section 30 (1)) of 1994, “every enterprise with a paid-up capital of US $10,000 but less than US $100,000 or its equivalent in cedis, shall be entitled to an initial automatic maximum immigrant quota of one person.”
Sub-section 2 states that “Every enterprise with a paid-up capital of US $100,000 but less than US $500,000 or its equivalent in cedis, shall be entitled to an initial automatic maximum immigrant quota of two persons.”
The third part of the law says “every enterprise with a paid-up capital of US $500,000 but less than US $500,000 or more or its equivalent in cedis shall be entitled to an initial automatic maximum immigrant quota of four persons.”
Contacted to explain the situation at GIPC, Mr Robert Ahomka-Lindsay, CEO of GIPC, told this paper his outfit was doing something about the situation and requested that the GYE NYAME CONCORD holds on to its publication in order to give him time to sort things out at GIPC.
“We are aware that there have been some serious challenges. That is why we are having some fundamental re-organisation. I would be glad if you could give us time to do this without the negative publicity now, he briefly remarked.
Amazingly, some of the so-called foreign experts brought into the country at the expense of Ghanaians, are high school and college drop-outs, or people who by records made available to the GIPC just completed schools.
Many of them come in for jobs that a number of graduates from the nation’s tertiary institutions could easily fill. Yet, most of the requests to bring them down, notably from India, China and a host of other countries, are approved without question.
Sources at the GIPC say officials have been benefiting financially from awarding the extra quotas to the companies, with some companies reportedly paying as much as $5000 per person allowed on the quota (more on this later).
Some GIPC officials have reportedly also turned the centre into personal goldmines and set up consultancies, which offer advice to expat companies on how to beat the existing legal framework. After taking their fees, they approve the briefs they and their partners outside GIPC have prepared, this paper gathered.
GIPC, among others, is tasked to initiate and support investment in the Ghanaian economy; a task many say the centre may have taken literally, without looking at the implied charge of also helping to create jobs.
Meantime, credible but yet-to-be-confirmed information passed on to this paper suggests some Chinese and Indian expats may be engaged in human trafficking, using the existence of their companies in Ghana to recruit citizens of their countries desperate and willing to pay thousands of dollars to travel outside. Keep on reading for more on GIPC.
