Mr Emmanual Awuni, a private sector consultant at the World Bank, says an unfavourable business regulatory framework is hindering entrepreneurial potential and deepening Ghana’s unemployment situation.

He said the existing regulatory framework and requirements from state agencies were a major obstacle to the realisation of the entrepreneurial potential of Ghanaian youth.

The unfavourable business regulatory framework, which includes business registration, was demotivating the youth from pursuing entrepreneurship.

This challenge, he said, could worsen the unemployment situation in the country as 3.87 per cent of the population is currently unemployed.

He was speaking at the End Poverty Day Programme which was held at the World Bank office in Accra.

“We have seen an unfavourable business regulation framework in the country. We are looking at the entry and exit points for businesses. As a young person, you know that when you are starting a business and you want to register, it is sometimes difficult. To even exit the business has its own challenges,” he said.

He called for reforms in the regulatory framework and requirements to encourage youth to pursue entrepreneurship.

He said the World Bank (WB) aimed to eliminate the bottlenecks associated with the regulatory framework by engaging the relevant agencies to improve the regulatory quality in Ghana.

Thus, the WB supported the Ministry of Trade and Industry to introduce business regulatory reforms to give agencies the push to improve regulatory governance and coordination to encourage entrepreneurship in the country.

The reforms, he said, will consequentially reduce unemployment in the country.

Mr. Awuni observed that many unemployed youths in the country lacked knowledge of career paths to pursue.

He urged the stakeholders in labour and employment relations to welcome the idea of pre-employment services to reduce unemployment in the country.

He indicated that economic growth in the country had not been consistent with job creation.

He said major progress in terms of economic growth in the country was achieved in the extractive sector, and a significant number of those employed in the sector were expatriates.

Therefore, the economic growth was not really creating the jobs needed to reduce the unemployment rate in the country.