Government not solely responsible for growing businesses – Yofi Grant

The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Investment Promotions Centre (GIPC), Yofi Grant has stressed that government is not and can’t be solely responsible for growing businesses in the country.

According to him, government’s main duty is to create an enabling environment that will make businesses function better.

Speaking at the 4th CEO Summit on a dialogue on Ghana’s economy and the practicality of doing business in Ghana towards a solution-oriented policy framework, the GIPC boss said “I think as a country first and foremost notwithstanding the ease of doing business, we need to understand where we are in our economic history, some of the strides we’ve made juxtaposed to the sort of politics that we’ve had over the period”.

“At some time it was very state driven and now it’s very pro-private sector driven. And the important thing beyond the ease of doing business is how you make business function seamlessly in your own country, so what are the barriers that you think will make business function better. And I don’t think there’s a better indicator of that than business themselves, not government. Because government’s real role is to create the environment and let businesses run and if businesses are not running fast and the presumption is that there’s something that government is doing right”, he added.

Yofi Grant further revealed that in order to have ease of doing business in the country, real home-grown solutions must be given to solve our unique problems.

Giving out pointers, he mentioned some pillars that will make businesses especially the private sector grow and that is by tackling the issue of bureaucracy, having a policy formulation and implementation, and lastly by deeply engaging private sector in government’s businesses.

According to him, these pillars will bring lasting solutions by contributing to the ease of doing businesses in the country.