The Foundation has in the past undertaken a number of key projects and activities that sought to improve the business climate in the country.
Some of the major activities and projects undertaken are:
It has been observed that smallholder farmers, with an average farm size of less than an acre, dominate the Ghanaian agricultural landscape. These smallholder farmers are unable to access credit, farm inputs, extension services and markets for their produce. They are therefore unable to increase their incomes as a result of the issues. It is believed that with strong Farmer-Based Organizations (FBOs) which bring the smallholder farmers together, they would be able to access credit, farm inputs, extension services and markets effectively. They would also be able to play a role in policy formulation.
It is against this background that the Private Enterprise Foundation with support from the Centre for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) based in Washington D.C., USA is undertaking an Advocacy Training Programme for Farmer-Based Organizations in three (3) pilot districts, namely, Ewutu/ Efutu/Senya District in the Central Region, Yilo Krobo District in the Eastern Region and South Tongu District in the Volta Region. These districts are among the districts selected for the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) project.
The Foundation has so far conducted a situational analysis and training needs assessment in these districts. However, the outcome of a situational analysis and needs assessment conducted by the Private Enterprise Foundation revealed that the FBOs at these districts have weak advocacy skills to articulate their concerns more effectively. It is worthy to note that these FBOs have had some form of training from the Ministry of Food and Agriculture in collaboration with the Cooperatives department but these training did not touch much on advocacy but rather on technical issues.
The objective of the Advocacy Training Programme is to equip the FBO executives with advocacy skills and strategies to enable them impact or influence policies, channel their issues and concerns to the appropriate authorities for consideration and also participate in policy formulation.
Government is the single largest customer group in any country and its market is too big by any business firm. The government market offers a wide range of business opportunities to the private sector, which help to promote the growth and development of businesses. Public or government business is the acquisition of goods and services by the government through the procurement system.
However, most Ghanaian enterprises such as local contractors and service providers are unable to tap into these government businesses because they are marginally uncompetitive in their contract prices as compared to those of their foreign counterparts. As a result, they are unable to accumulate experience and wealth to develop and grow their business to be world-class competitive enterprises.
The Public Procurement Act (Act 663) of 2003 makes provision for a margin of preference in the award of contracts for works, goods and services for the benefit of tenders for work by domestic contractors and services providers or for the benefit of domestic suppliers of services in order to increase the competitiveness of local companies. (Ref. Section 60 of the Public Procurement Act). In spite of this, most domestic contractors and service providers lose out in bidding for government contracts because procurement entities are not obliged to apply this provision in the Act.There have been several calls from the business community for the government to make mandatory the “margin of preference” in the Public Procurement Act.
The advocacy seeks to amend section 60 of the Public Procurement act 2003, (Act 663), to make mandatory for the procurement for procurement entities to grant domestic contractors and service providers a margin of preference as stipulated in the Act.
CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
The issue of governance at the corporate level has become very important because Good Corporate Governance enhances business performance and contributes to economic growth. Unfortunately, corporate governance in the Sub-Saharan Africa is weak and has adversely affected processes and practices, which have resulted in poor performance of firms. Weak corporate governance also undermines firms’ ability to attract to attract business partner from other investors to grow their businesses. These developments have contributed to the slow growth rate of the economics of the Sub-Saharan African Region.
The broad objective of the project is to develop reliable knowledge of Good Corporate Principle and inculcate compliance with Good Corporate Practices in the private sector in order to increase confidence of investors both domestic and foreign and, to ensure that firms manage the environment sustainable and contribute positively to the growth and development of the economy.
The specific objectives of the project are:
In consonance with the government’s golden age of business a number of legislation have been passed to improve the business climate for enterprises. However, the business community’s development is still hampered by legislations and regulations that have outlived their usefulness. The legislations and regulations not only increase the cost of doing business in Ghana but has been the major contributor to the ‘death’ of many enterprises.
The sector hardest hit by these legislations and regulations is the small and micro enterprises (SMEs), which have thus resorted to non-compliance as a means to stay in business. This is evidenced by the relatively large informal sector in Ghana.
The private enterprise foundation recognises that fact that legislations and regulations differently affect multinational, national, small, medium and micro enterprises. To this end there is the need to investigate how legislations and regulations affect the different classes of enterprises and advocate fro reforms for each group without necessarily protecting any.The project seeks to identify a number of legislations and regulations that negatively affect the operations of SMEs, gather empirical evidence of these effects and advocate for their review.The specific objectives are as follows:
To advocate for the change of such legislations and regulation.
There is a significant, unexploited opportunity to increase export of services in Ghana as a result of two major trends:
PEF proposed to promote the export of professional and technical services (accounting, project management, public relations, legal counselling, etc.) by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to the West Africa sub-region and beyond. Services export differs from other export services in that in the former intellectual property rather than physical products are being exported. Potential exist among professional within SMEs in Ghana to export services especially to clients within the sub-region. Whilst a number of firms export services to countries in the sub-region, the potential is limited due to certain constraints (cultural considerations, unsuitable promotional materials, quality assurance, pricing, etc.), and others have not taken advantage due to lack or limited information.
The demand for services exists especially within countries that are emerging from conflicts (such as Liberia, Sierra Leone) and countries with limited capacity (the Gambia, Equatorial Guinea). These countries have had to export such services from outside the sub-region.
This project sought to build the capacity of trade and business associations to take advantage of the potential in services export. The project, at this pilot phase, will package demands for services from countries in the sub-region for interested business entities to bid and enter into contract relationships with host countries/business entities. Subsequently with improved capacity, business entities will advertise for and seek out contracts for themselves.
Over the years, business operators have raised concerns about the long periods that business cases have to spend in the courts before issues are resolved. This is a situation, which has a negative effect on the development and growth of the private sector. In order to reduce this long delay in the delivery of judgement in the courts and to enhance expertise and specialization in certain areas of the aw, in particular, commercial and investment law, the Ghana arbitration Centre has been established to address a critical need in the country’s system of resolving commercial disputes.
Unfortunately, most people including business operator are either unaware or do not understand the existence of the Arbitration Centre as a viable, reliable, fair and expeditious system of dispute resolution.
Against this background, the Private Enterprise Foundation (PEF), with the kind sponsorship of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAF) and in collaboration with the Ghana Arbitration Centre has planned a series of regional sensitization seminars to create awareness and educate business people on Arbitration and Alternative Dispute Resolution mechanisms. The third regional seminar which attracted forty-three (43) participants was held on Wednesday, 3rd May, 2006 at the Coconut Grove Regency Hotel, Accra.
In a free market economy such as Ghana’s, businesses grow, develop and become competitive through markets. These include labour markets, land markets, markets for multi-nationals to buy and sell, and open-air markets for informal traders. Markets are where and how private sector development takes place. The Government of Ghana’s (GoG’s) Private Sector Development Strategy is a 5-year medium term business development document, which is about making the market system for the private sector work better.
The GoG’s vision for the golden age of business is for Ghana to have a world-class business environment. Three key targets are -
A monitoring and Evaluation framework was formulated to help monitor and evaluate the implementation of the strategy by the key Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies that are related to private sector development in Ghana. This will help in marking the performing indicators of the strategy.
The Private Enterprise Foundation (PEF) in its quest to help the government in its initiative of creating a Golden Age of business, commissioned a study on Monitoring and Evaluation of the indicators in the Private Sector Development Strategy (PSDS) that can help achieve this purpose. The Private Sector Development Strategy is designed to provide the road map leading to the attainment of this goal.
The Foundation with support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) organized a series of workshops and retreats with various stakeholders to help review the indicators of the Private Sector Development Strategy Monitoring and Evaluation framework and held consultative meetings to that effect. These meeting meetings were organized in the three (3) major cities where economic activities were on the ascendancy. These included Accra, Kumasi and Takoradi metropolis respectively. It afforded most Private sector organizations in these metropolises to appreciate the existence of the strategy which majority knew nothing about and to join in the Monitoring and Evaluation process. Sunyani and Tamale with their fast growing economic activities will be included in the Private Sector review of the strategy this year.
