GIPC to clear bottlenecks in economy as part of efforts to make local business strive
The Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) intends to fully remove all bottlenecks that hinder the smooth operation of doing business in the country to attract a lot more investments into the country.
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He said the removal of taxes on imported raw materials among other things which served as some of the major bottlenecks for both local and foreign companies, would afford the GIPC the opportunity to push the agenda of local companies thriving within the economy forward.
“We see that a lot of the taxes in existence are front loads which needs to be taken to the back load. So when the people have made the money then we tax them but you do not tax them when they have not started.
He said the government was committed to tax reforms implementation, “we promised tax would be implemented to the fullest to enable the private sector to have some breathing space.”
The Chief Executive Officer of the Centre, Mr Yoofi Grant, told the GRAPHIC BUSINESS in an interview that removal of taxes, details of which would be given in the budget statement would be a major step towards relieving the private sector of the stress in getting them to strive.
“For us the ease of doing business which we intend to introduce through the removal of the bottlenecks that have hindered the progress of doing business will drive the agenda,” he said.
Mr Grant, an astute investment banker: “We do not want to be policemen; We want to be a nurse or a doctor for businesses in the country and I think that will work better. So we want to be the ones who will shepherd the sheep,” he said.
One-stop-shop
One of the major challenges investors face when they enter the country has to do with the ease of doing business. Registration of businesses and access to other relevant documents take a long time as they are compelled to move from one spot to the other. This practice is not only frustrating but expensive because it takes time.
Against this background, Mr Grant said: “We also need to help the businesses in by providing ready market for them. This is because the growth of businesses at the end of the day is the catalyst to the growth of the country’s economy.”
“There has been a lot of effort to try and make the GIPC a one-stop shop for people who want to set up businesses, especially foreigners, and so I want to make it a priority to ensure that is done. Therefore, I am going in there to ascertain the stage of that concept.
“What we are going to do is to set up a unit to ensure the ease of setting up a new start-up. One of the key challenges is that you go to GIPC to register your business and you need to go to other agencies or departments to get a licence which also takes several months,’’ Mr Grant said.
He said a specialised wing of GIPC would be set up to accept documents “and ensure the smooth registration of a business without walking to all the agencies to register one after the other.”
“That, we believe, will be a service to a lot of companies “because it is a cost for them if they need to go back and forth.”
Partnerships
Mr Grant said the centre would not work in isolation but would bring on board all the necessary state agencies and ministries to ensure that what is being done to encourage local investors to do more or bait foreign investors are done.
“We will work together with other sectors to find the solution to help our business and our economy to grow,” he said.