Corporate Ghana reveals expectation to Prez Mahama

Even as the president elect, His Excellency John Dramani Mahama is yet to be sworn into office on January 7th 2013 by the Chief Justice, corporate Ghana has begun to reveal expectations from the president.

Most of the company heads that Economy Times spoke say they are just waiting for the Mahama budget for 2013 to get the way clear with regard to the new things the budget will bring on board.

But the private sector has revealed their usual concerns which are the supply of electricity and cost of credit which they think need to be addressed to enable them expand and employ more people.

According to the Monetary Policy Committee report, the credit conditions survey conducted in October 2012 indicated that credit stance for SMEs and credit to households for mortgages were tightened due to low cash flow, unsatisfactory account operation and poor credit history. However, credit stance for large enterprises and consumers eased reflecting improved economic expectation.

Private sector credit continued to expand in the year. In nominal terms, credit grew by 43.8 percent on an annual basis in September 2012, compared to 25.5 percent a year ago. In real terms, credit to the private sector recorded an annual growth of 31.4 percent against 15.8 percent in September 2011.

According to Kwesi Amoafo -Yeboah, Chairman for I-zone major dealer for MTN proposed the setting up of a virtual fund to support various companies in the country. This he said, with government guarantee, investors will be more than willing to put in their monies into the funds for companies to access for their expansion programs and create more jobs in the country.

He was of the view that National Health Insurance Scheme was established on an ad hoc funding hence there is the need for total restructuring adding that those who wants to pay should be made to pay and the scheme should be reserve for the poor in the society.

He said the 2012 general election was essentially a referendum on Free SHS. So, it is reasonable to conclude that about half of voters want Free SHS.” Based on this, may I humbly suggest to our predident-elect to implement Free SHS within his first term. I may not believe in it (as proposed), but many Ghanaians want it.” He added

Another key area that he touched on was the corruption perception, which he said needs to be addressed.

IMANI also thinks that the related decision of completely outsourcing the integrated gas project to a foreign entity instead of pursuing local and international public-private partnerships, for the sheer reason of meeting unrealistic timelines, has robbed this country of a golden opportunity to develop a skills base, and vital linkages with the financial sector, for this critical new resource.

“There is now evidence that the gas infrastructure project will have significant, perhaps permanent, shortcomings. The quantity of gas produced, the pricing and marketing framework, the time frame of actual integration into the power grid, maintenance policy and a host of factors have come together in this severely challenged project to prevent the prospect of Ghana’s gas being used to power industry in the near term.”