Vice President Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia
Vice President Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia says government is committed to instituting the necessary reforms and structures to make Ghana the most business-friendly in Africa.
Ghana made some marginal progress in improving the environment for doing business, according to the latest World Bank Ease of Doing Business reports.
The Rankings saw Ghana go up by three places to 108 out of 190 countries ranked.
Responding to a question from JOYBUSINESSÂ after engaging officials of the International Financial Corporation (IFC), the Vice President said fast-tracking the required reforms are necessary to improve the environment for Ghanaian businesses and foreign investors.
He said this would help make Ghana the best place for doing business adding government has to put in place the structures where they are lacking.
“You can also proceed to implement the reforms which are not only policies. Part of the reforms is putting in the institutional mechanisms that will underpin these new processes,” he said.
According to him, if government wants to put in place a business registration centre or mechanism to deliver “something” within four days or less, the structures put in place must work.
“These are all reforms that we are going to do. They are ambitious reforms but we are committed to them as they are very important and we will get them done,” he said.
He also spoke about how technology would play a critical role in this transformation.
“Rwanda has integrated its data across ministries and to platforms. Ghana has one of the most robust payment systems platforms in Africa, we have just not integrated it enough and we will have to do so.
“I believe that if we put in the national address and identification system, we will create the underpinning for the sort of integration we have and also uniquely identify every business,” he said.
Dr Bawumia said these are the building blocks and infrastructure which have aided Rwanda and Kenya to get things right and Ghana aspiring to get there.
The IMF/World Bank doing a business report has over the years become the benchmark for assessing the competitiveness and investment climate of countries around the world.
It assesses countries based on 11 indicators such as starting a business, access to a credit facility, registering a property, access to electricity, paying taxes, protecting minority investors, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency.
-Myjoyonline