As the Finance Minister prepares to present the Mid-Year Budget Review in Parliament on the 13th of July 2022, the Importers and Exporters Association is urging government to implement more measures to improve the ease of doing business in the country.

According to the Association, this will ensure economic growth and position the country to benefit immensely from the African Continental Free Trade Area agreement.

The presentation of the mid-year budget review by the Minister of Finance comes as Ghana prepares to seek some economic assistance from the International Monetary Fund.

In an interview with Citi Business News, Executive Secretary of the Association, Samson Asaaki Awingobit noted that easing business processes will quicken economic growth and improve the overall competitiveness of the economy.

“What government can do is to help improve the ease of doing businesses in the country. This will go a long way to improve the business environment for businesses, especially the importers, in this country. It will also position the country to benefit significantly from the African Continental Free Trade Area agreement. As they are going to the IMF, we are also looking forward to also seeing a reduction in the number of taxes. We also want to see a policy that will make the business committee flourish. This is not the time to hear any additional layer of taxes. We do not want to hear that,” he added.

Already, a World Bank report indicated that the ease of doing business in Ghana deteriorated marginally in 2020 compared to the previous year… The latest World Bank Ease of Doing Business ranking shows that Ghana has dropped from 114 in 2019 to 118 in 2020.

What is the Ease of Doing Business report?
The Ease of Doing Business report, which measures businesses’ competitiveness in 190 countries, attributes Ghana’s drop to the government’s decision to convert GETFund and NHIL levies to straight taxes.

According to the World Bank, the conversion made paying taxes more complicated and more costly as they became a cost to businesses.

The World Bank Ease of Doing Business, which is a forward-looking report, in 2019 ranked Ghana at 114 with a score of 60.4, and in 2020, the country was ranked 118 with a score of 6.