The outgoing World Bank Country Director, Henry Kerali, has challenged the government to among other things, prioritise the strengthening of the business environment in Ghana in order to better compete with other lower-middle-income countries.
Ghana is currently ranked 114 among 190 economies in the ease of doing business, according to the latest World Bank annual rankings.
In a final interaction with the media before leaving the country, Mr. Kerali whose mission to Ghana ends on June 30, 2019, believes the country’s problem of unemployment, for example, will be greatly improved if the private sector is strengthened.
“The key challenge for Ghana is improving the business environment. You’ll not get mass employment through the public sector. Large scale employment is through the private sector. In many countries, over 90 percent of jobs are created by the private sector.
This is something Ghana needs to work towards. Regarding what needs to be done, the World Bank defines that as the business environment. The World Bank Group publishes annually the Doing Business ranking which, we have to say, Ghana has seen a very slight improvement, not significant.
And as a parting message, this is one area I will suggest to Ghana to focus on to improve the business environment. Some steps have been taken notably the approval of the Companies Act by Parliament,” Mr. Kerali urged.
Mr. Kerali who has been in the country since 2015, cautioned that Ghana needs to readjust the utilization of the country’s resources to boost economic growth. Mr. Kerali maintains that the situation if not resolved, would plunge Ghana into the infamous Dutch disease era.
