The Savannah Region has emerged as the latest region with a "moderately free" environment for businesses and entrepreneurial activities in the country.

The Africa Centre for Entrepreneurship and Youth Empowerment (ACEYE), a policy think-tank, ranked the Region first in its 2024 edition of the Regional Entrepreneurship Freedom (REF) index.

The assessment highlights regional disparities and identifies areas where entrepreneurship freedom can be strengthened, using 14 indicators.

These include regulation, financial freedom, freedom from corruption, monetary freedom, freedom from government, fiscal freedom, investment freedom, property rights, information freedom, market freedom, cultural freedom, technological freedom, labour freedom and trade freedom.

Speaking at the report launch, Emmanuel Acquah, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of ACEYE, said the Region performed creditably well except in the area of financial freedom and the fight against corruption.

The Eastern, Volta and Ahafo regions were ranked second, third and fourth, in that order, as they were categorized as “mostly unfree”.

The North East, Northern and Upper East regions were ranked fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth in that order, as they were categorized as “repressed”.

Acquah explained that REF Index was an essential tool for evaluating the autonomy and decentralisation of entrepreneurial decision-making across regions.

Despite Ghana’s ranking as “mostly unfree” by the Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom 2024, he said the REF Index seeks to empirically assess entrepreneurship freedom at a granular level.

He noted that the assessment was conducted through a survey where a mixed method approach was adopted to solicit responses from 3200 respondents.

“We incorporated ethnographic methods, interviews and observation into the analysis to enhance the rigour of our study,” he said.

The study has among other things recommended the reduction of tax burdens of SMEs, streamlining activities of state agencies that perform duplicate roles in the SME space and the Ghana Revenue Authority must improve redress mechanisms for SMEs at the regional level.