President reiterates commitment to Private Sector

President John Kufuor says the Ministry of Private Sector Development (MPSD) was established to encourage hard-working, honest and successful individuals to get good dividends for their hard-work, investments and to get rich.

He said in the past, it had become dangerous to be rich or to be known and seen as such, therefore successful businessmen decided it was safer to appear to be modest and kept their hard earned monies overseas rather than in local banks.

"This must change and the Ministry must see it as integral to its duties to campaign to reverse this trend," he added.

President Kufuor was addressing a three-day National Workshop on fashioning the "Policy Directions and Strategies for Private Sector Development in Ghana" to create the Golden Age of Business, at Elmina in the Central region.

He said it was from the jobs that successful entrepreneurs create as well as the taxes they pay that the nation would prosper and win the war against the degrading unemployment suffered within the economy.

The new ministry was intended to be an innovative service ministry to co-ordinate and harmonize the efforts of all relevant ministries and agencies to make them effective in their support for the development of the private sector.

According to the President, it was also to act as the champion and advocate of the private sector both local and foreign in its push to assume the role as engine of growth of the economy.

It would critically examine, identify and work to remove the various bureaucratic and other impediments or practices, which affect the smooth operation of the private sector. "Any impediments within our economic, legal and financial framework should be removed, re-shaped or transformed to the advantage of business," he added.

The government says it is renewing its commitment to give hope and assistance to investors both local and foreign who are prepared to risk their capital to create wealth for themselves and society.

The Ministry's focus according to the President must be to identify and encourage the evolution of this class of entrepreneurs to generate wealth and thereby contribute to make the nation and the people comfortable with higher standards of living.

The new Ministry, which has already seen two ministers, is to be concerned with business in all its forms and its operations and be inter-sectoral to cut across various ministries and departments such as the Ministries of Finance, Trade and Industry, Agriculture, Mines, Energy and Lands and Forestry.

Kufuor said the cardinal feature in the globalised economy was competition and the successful players were those businesses and entrepreneurs who were geared up to respond adequately to the twists and turns of the market.

"The ministry must therefore help to discover and nurture those businessmen and enterprises capable of taking the country into the mainstream of the global village," he added.

President Kufuor said the new Ministry must be the catalyst in the country to empower business and champion good business partnership because Information Technology (IT) literacy, competent management, trained labour, market awareness accessing capital, facilitating joint ventures and international networking were assets that the private sector by itself could not easily come by without state support.

The Golden Age of Business being envisaged by the government is not meant to be the era where people succeeded because they were given monopolies, which allowed them to take undue advantage of the people because of the lack of competition. "We intend to create the platform and a level field where all investors, big and small, local and foreign, private and public could come to exploit the numerous opportunities for wealth-creation that exist in the country. The Ministry is to ensure that this dream becomes a reality," the President added.

The sector Minister, Mr. Kwamena Bartels, MP said an Advisory Board made up of representatives of the private sector and experts would be established to have a regular forum where the private sector and the public sector agencies could exchange views on important policy issues.

In addition, the Ministry would establish a unit that would specialise in assisting businesses to enter into Public, Private Partnership (PPP) arrangements with both central and local government.

According to Mr. Bartels, the Italian government had made available a 10- million-dollar loan on extremely concessionary terms for the importation of equipment and machinery for the small-scale and medium-scale agro-businesses, which would generate employment for the youth and increase the incomes of farmers to reduce poverty.

He said this was in addition to another 500,000 dollars to finance the setting up of a Project Implementation Unit (PIU) to see to its implementation.

Senior Minister and Chairman of the Economic Management Team, Mr. Joseph Henry Mensah, MP who chaired the opening ceremony said when the partnership between government and the private sector were well and truly constructed it would provide the impetus for the private sector to grow.

He asked the participants mostly private entrepreneurs to take advantage of the workshop to exchange ideas and frustrations involved in their operations and come out with proposals which would enable them to take advantage of the prevailing economic situation.

Later President Kufuor paid a courtesy call on Nana Kojo Conduah VI, Omanhene of Edina Traditional Area with a pledge to dredge the lagoon in and establish a fishing harbour in the town in response to an appeal by the Chief.

Nana Conduah appealed to the government to ignore the numerous anonymous letters about the Central Regional Minister, Mr. Isaac Edumadze to his office and retain him to continue with the socio-economic development of the region