Valentina Mintah (left) and Joe Jackson at forum
VALENTINA MINTAH, founder of West Blue Consulting, has called for collaboration between government institutions and private businesses in order to achieve accelerated economic growth.
She said government should also improve the legal and regulatory environment for businesses to thrive.
Ms. Mintah made these suggestions at a recent EU-Ghana business forum held in Accra under the theme: “Boosting investments for sustainable jobs in Ghana”.
The Vice-President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, was in attendance as well as the European Commission Vice-President, Jyrki Katainen, among others.
Speaking to the topic: “The way forward: establishing priorities for the political, institutional, regulatory and operational frameworks in order to boost investment for job creation in Ghana”, Ms. Mintah mentioned some activities which were being pursued in Ghana to achieve success.
These included the identification of priority industries, setting shared vision and creating the awareness of the vision across the business, government and the citizenry. She also mentioned business optimization and re-engineering, ensuring supporting legal and regulatory framework by refining existing and creating policies for emerging areas such as data ownership and cybercrime, etc.
“The continuous monitoring and evaluation of this framework will certainly set the pace for all parties, individually and collectively, locally and internationally, to realize the investment boom and job creation so desired,” she said.
She also cited government’s digital roadmap and the paperless port programmes as some of the successful examples.
EU Advises Gov’t
Mr Katainen, in his remarks, said governments had to provide the best framework possible for private enterprises to operate successfully.
“A favourable investment climate is essential for attracting direct investment and for the private sector to grow. While private enterprises must be responsible for their own success, it is still up to governments to provide the best framework possible for those enterprises to operate successfully,” he said.
Mr. Katainen also lauded Ghana’s economic recovery. He stated, “Today, the overall outlook for Ghana is optimistic. Ghana is regarded as one of West Africa’s most stable democracies and the European Union is proud to accompany Ghana in its journey towards economic transformation and prosperity.”
Bawumia Assures Businesses
Vice-President Dr. Bawumia, in a speech, said the government aimed to strengthen the private sector as the engine of growth, with a view to making Ghanaian businesses productive and more competitive.
He assured the private sector that the government was committed to advancing sustainable and inclusive growth, economic transformation and development by enhancing the business and investment climate, as well as mobilizing investments in the strategic areas of infrastructure, energy, digitization, connectivity, transportation, and agriculture.
He encouraged young entrepreneurs to be innovative in every avenue possible, saying “government is doing everything to support you in diverse ways to grow your businesses for the bigger markets.”
BY Samuel Boadi