The Chief Executive Officer of the Private Enterprise Federation (PEF) Nana Osei-Bonsu has cited corruption as one of the major factors hindering Ghana’s competitiveness.
In his view, corruption prevents the fast process of doing business in Ghana and is gradually eroding the competitiveness of the private sector.
His comments come on the back of attempts by agencies such as the Ghana Investment Promotion Center (GIPC) to improve Ghana’s ranking in the “Ease of Doing Business”.
Currently, Ghana ranks 108th out of 190 countries in the World Bank “Ease of Doing Business”.
“That’s what we need the government to do. Support from government to undertake everything that we need to do, to allow us to be able to be competitive. But that is not the only thing; corruption on the back of the private sector is eroding our competitiveness. If you don’t pay, you don’t get,” he lamented.
He stated that inefficiencies in the public sector has heightened corruption, leading to the extortion of the privates sector.
“They said the private sector is the supply side of corruption. I will tell you private sector is facing extortion to do business. Inefficient public sector services, the delay in getting licenses, unreliable infrastructure service delivery; we are all knowledgeable to that. The high cost of capital,” he said.
“We only have credit in our system; we don’t have private equity, venture capital. So everybody is competing for the limited credit including government. And if the bank is willing to give government of the day credit line with 30% interest rate, how will they give to private sector which is most vulnerable.” he exclaimed.
He was speaking at the Citi FM Investment Opportunities Forum.
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