Incentives in the Budget are steps in the right Direction - Abankroh

Accra, Nov. 18, GNA 96 Mr Ernest Abankroh, Country Manager (Ghana) Anglogold Ashanti, has described as a step in the right direction the generous incentives that were announced in the 2007 Budget to enhance the performance of the private sector.

Speaking at the Business and Financial Times 2006 Best Sector Performance Awards Night, Mr Abankroh said the ongoing road construction works across the country, improvement in the telecommunication and port services, and the tax relieves provided for in the budget were an indication that government was making good strides to facilitate the cost of doing business in the country.

However, he said, while the government's active involvement in assisting the private sector was commendable, the country was still not out of the woods yet as far as the cost of doing business was concerned. Mr. Abankroh said while private investment remained the main driving force of the private sector and thrived well in an environment that was protective of property rights and supportive of business transactions; it was still problematic for those seeking to start new businesses.

There are still problems of credit support from the financial sector, persistent delays in property registration, availability of quality and affordable labour and so forth as well as the residual problems in contract enforcement, processing of licenses and related factors that tended to engender bribery and corruption.

Mr Abankroh said besides these challenges, the cost in time and money that various business concerns devote to complying with regulatory procedures tended to be quite hefty and sometimes very avoidable without compromising best practice.

On the recent power crisis that had hit the nation, he said, apart from the destructive effects of power fluctuation and surges, the dependence of other vital services such as water and the financial sector on uninterrupted and relatively affordable power supplies set ripples in the business environment, which considerably challenge both the local and foreign investor alike.

Mr Abankroh said the resultant response by companies in investment in alternative generating sets was not only expensive but also add considerably to corporate running costs and other related expenditures given the recent fuel price hikes.

He urged government to put into operation some of the established institutional frameworks that were supposed to engender public-private partnerships to allow power generation and supply at a fair and equitable cost nationwide.

Mr Abankroh said the extent to which most of these challenges outlined was dealt with would go a long way to determine the success of the implementation of the intentions of the 2007 Budget.

Mr Franklin Sowa, Business Development Manager of Business and Financial Times, said the Best Sector Performance Awards had been adopted as one of the few strategies to offer healthy challenges that would promote enhanced professionalism to sustain the country's economic growth.

He said winners were selected by a committee based on the extent to which their overall goals and objectives had been met over the past year, as well as related hallmark activities initiated by the sectors and the impact of such sectors on the overall performance of the economy.

Other factors considered are the application of good management practices within the overall concept of enhanced corporate governance, output and value contribution to the particular sector's quota to the national economy, which included among others products and services and or monetary contribution. Dr Joseph Nnanna, Director General of the West African Monetary Institute (WAMI), who chaired the function commended the Business and Financial Times for the initiative and expressed the hope that all other media organizations across the sub-region would take a cue from the good example of the Newspaper to use their medium to engender good economic performance.

In all, four organizations picked up awards. The overall Best Sector Performance Award went to the World Bank Group Ghana Office for their initiative Ghana Marketplace which generated four billion cedis to support small medium scale enterprises (SMEs) operators. Other institutions, which picked up awards, were the Metro Mass Transit Company, Unique Trust Financial Services and Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA). 18 Nov. 06