Vice President Bawumia addressing the participants
Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia boosted the morale of young Ghanaian entrepreneurs yesterday when he pledged government’s unflinching support for their activities.
Speaking at an entrepreneurship forum put together by the National Youth Authority (NYA) and the Commonwealth Alliance for Young Entrepreneurs (CAYE), he outlined a number of initiatives the Akufo-Addo administration has rolled out since assuming power.
Dr Bawumia talked of how easy it has become in registering businesses, reduced cost of electricity and water, low borrowing rate and port efficiency. However, he expressed concern about the overall cost of doing business in the country.
According to him, “This has been a major pre-occupation of the government of President Akufo-Addo from January 2017.
“When we wanted to do the Digital Addressing System, we looked at all addressing systems in the world that we could find and surprisingly, and thankfully, the best system was by a Ghanaian entrepreneur, a young Ghanaian entrepreneur.”
Dr Bawumia recognized the fact that “They beat all the international competition and I was amazed that such a system was developed right here in Accra, in Dansoman, and it was sitting there and we didn’t know anything about it.”
The vice president emphasised, “We believe in Ghanaian enterprise and we will do everything as government to empower and help you.
“Today under Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s government, we are working to ensure that you can also say, ‘it is a great time to be a young entrepreneur.’”
This, he said, was part of the reasons why the government took steps in the 2017 budget to reduce the special petroleum tax rate from 17.5 percent to 15 percent; reduce the National Electrification Scheme Levy from 5 percent to 3 percent and reduce the Public Lighting Levy from 5 percent to 2 percent.
Apart from that, he indicated, “In the 2018 budget, government appealed to the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) to re-examine the schedule of utility tariffs to make life a bit easier for households and businesses.”
That, he said, was what compelled the PURC to respond with significant reductions in electricity tariffs by 30% for businesses, 17.5% for residential consumers, 10% for the Mining Sector, and 25% for Special Load Tariff Consumers this month (March).
Just yesterday, government issued a directive for the suspension of 15% Import VAT on 64 commodity groups, each of which is made up of several products – all in an attempt to reduce the overall tax burden on investors and entrepreneurs.
These efforts exclude the many other tax cuts and reductions outlined in the 2017 budget.
The vice president seized the opportunity to commend the CEO of NYA, Emmanuel Asigri – ably assisted by his two deputies, Rocky Obeng and Kwabena Acheampong – and the local chapter of Commonwealth Alliance for Young Entrepreneurs for the initiative to bring young entrepreneurs throughout the country together to brainstorm on issues affecting their businesses.
By Charles Takyi-Boadu, Presidential Correspondent