Investors to have hotline complaints system
The government is to institute a hotline system to receive complaints of bureaucratic impediments to local and foreign private sector investors in the country.
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President John Dramani Mahama, who made this known at the opening of the first meeting of the Private Sector Advisory Council (PSAC) at the Flagstaff House last Friday, said complaints received from the investors would be investigated by the Office of the President working in close collaboration with the Ministry of Trade and Industry and the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC).
He said the hotline system, which would be within the framework of the PSAC, would go live by the end of July, 2013.
The President constituted the council – which has representatives from the government, the Ghana Chamber of Commerce, the Private Enterprise Foundation and the GIPC – to develop strategies for the growth of the private sector.
Chaired by the President, the council is supposed to hold two meetings in a year.
President Mahama said recommendations that would be made after the investigations would be swiftly and fully implemented and monitored by his office.
“I will personally review on a quarterly basis the reports from this endeavour,” he promised.
President Mahama said the reports would also form part of the agenda for the future meetings of the council.
He said the government would continue to improve the capacity of the public sector to service the private sector.
The President said the Ministry of Trade and Industry, in collaboration with relevant state agencies, had issued new directives for enhanced monitoring and tracking of foreign imports that did not meet Ghanaian standard and requirements.
“The attendant punitive measures will apply in those instances where it has been established that the imports fall below our requirements, and thus level the playing field for Ghanaian importers,” he said.
President Mahama affirmed the government's commitment to create the conducive atmosphere to propel the growth of the private sector.
President Mahama said the private sector had the potential to move Ghana from a lower middle-income country to full middle-income status.
The President mentioned the high cost of credit, high cost of doing business, erratic energy supply, bureaucracy and red tape in the public sector as some of the challenges facing the sector.
He said recent measures taken by the government were to maintain fiscal stability and ensure a conducive environment for the growth of the private sector.
For instance, he explained that the fiscal stabilisation levy on imports had a time frame to correct the fiscal instability and that it was not meant to stay forever.
By Musah Yahaya Jafaru/Daily Graphic/Ghana