Government urged to increase role in Private Sector

A workshop to launch a Medium-Term National Private Sector Development Strategy opened in Accra on Wednesday with a call on government to increase its role in making the Sector competitive.

"Government has a huge role to play in the private sector not only as a facilitator but also to ensure that regulations are in place that would make the Private Sector take centre stage and move the national economy forward."

Mr Joseph Henry Mensah, Senior Minister, who made the point, noted that government needed to, and would back the private sector all the way. "Hence the decision to develop a medium to long term strategy that would address the current situation."

He said some people had argued that government had no role in engaging in business, "but the foregoing shows that government must and should be involved somehow. Government's role to me is to work to bring stability into the Sector."

Mr Kwamena Bartels, Minister of Private Sector Development, said it was time to look beyond the short term planning and development of the Sector, adding that with the support of all, Ghana could make it.

Mr Bartels said the development of any nation depended on the active participation of the Private Sector, "and they must be helped to get the nation to that level".

He said the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS) proposed changes needed to create an enabling environment for an effective Private Sector led growth.

"The proposed policy measures are in the area of macroeconomic stability; creation of new institutions and restructuring of existing ones as well as the reforming of the legal regime to make them more responsive to the needs of the Private Sector..."

Mr Bartels said the Ministry would explore linkages and synergies between sectors for a greater impact on the growth-enhancing and poverty-reduction measures proposed in the GPRS.

He explained that the GPRS proposed the development of partnership between public and private sectors through the outsourcing of some of the management of public facilities to private sector operators and the provision of public services by the private sector with shared responsibilities and interests.

The Minister said government believed in the need to build a shared understanding and appropriate remedial polices.

"The first step is to build consensus on the strategic assumptions that would drive policy-making in the corporate sector and put Ghana on a high growth path."

He said the challenge facing the nation was how to come up with a credible Private Sector-led growth strategy that involved all, including the Sector itself.

Later in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) Business Desk, Mr Kwesi Adu Amankwaa, TUC Secretary General, said government had a role to play in the Private Sector, especially in taking up huge investments in ventures that the Sector on its own could not shoulder.

"Government should also provide regulations that would ensure that funds are not dissipated by people entrusted with public funds."