Chief Executive of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC), Kwesi Abeasi, is advocating a 50,000-dollar minimum requirement for foreign investors as against the current 10,000-dollar ceiling.
"Instead of a complete removal being advocated by the International community such as the IMF and World Bank, Ghana would rather increase hers to 50,000 dollars. "The proposed reform should go up and not be removed, we need to be careful about the type of investment we want in Ghana. Already Ghana's reputation on the investment arena is being eroded," he said.
Mr. Abeasi was speaking at a day's workshop to discuss a survey report on the cost of doing business in Ghana and the administrative barriers to investment in the country.
It was aimed at providing the private sector feedback on the impediments to business establishment and operations in Ghana and provides a benchmark data on key internationally comparable investment environment indicators and a basis for measuring change over time.
Mr Abeasi, who was making an intervention after the report on administrative barriers to investment said, "the theory says remove those barriers but we will recommend that for a joint venture, Ghana wants somebody who will put in 50,000 dollars.
"We have to balance the need to give incentive systems with the benefits forgone, otherwise we will throw everything over board. "Why should we freely allow the foreign investor into our country and generate money and then transfer our cedis into foreign capital and send to his country," he asked.
He said Ghana would take advice but when it realizes they were not favourable it would not succumb to them.
Presenting the first part of the report, Mrs. Margo Thomas, of the Foreign Investment Advisory Services (FIAS), said Ghana was second in two countries whose FDI percentage of the Gross Domestic Product stood very low at 2.3 per cent. The other country with about two per cent is Kenya.
She said the survey also indicated 75 per cent of the respondents were dissatisfied with the administrative procedures of doing business in Ghana adding that Ghana made little progress in implementing earlier recommendations or studies conducted showing the absence of a sustained and systematic approach to reforms.
Mrs. Thomas said the implementation of some of the recommendations were narrowly focused and asked whether Ghana was taking advantage of the window of opportunities or considering how some of its administrative barriers affect the business climate.
On laws affecting private sector development, Chief Programme Officer, FIAS, Makbul Rahim, said there was the need for government to tailor a competitive law or policy to the economic requirement of Ghana due to the liberalization policy.
He however, called for a review of the pre-requisite for company registration and streamline the powers to offer additional incentives for priority sectors.
Rahim called for the revision of the company codes, which he said, was crucial for attainment of corporate good governance by taking into cognisance the contemporary standards.
Touching on judicial procedures, he suggested an alternative dispute resolution mechanism, which he termed as "Small Claims Court" and said such courts do not require the services of an attorney and proceedings were carried in a friendly environment.
He also said there was the need to address the financial autonomy of the judiciary in allocation of finance.
Mr Bryan Land, Special Advisor, FIAS said several policies of important legislation's soon to be implemented needed to be given priority for assessment in terms of private sector development before enactment.
He said the government needed to take a view on how it was going to implement law reforms programme in conjunction with allied measures of an administrative and institutional nature.
