The African Centre for Economic Transformation (ACET) has appealed to Apex bodies to mediate, lobby and engage with government on behalf of business associations and small and medium-sized enterprises.

At a roundtable discussion on the private sectors, Senior Fellow at ACET, Professor. John Asafu-Adjaye noted it is crucial for all business associations to belong to umbrella groups or chambers, and that this must be made mandatory through regulation.

“There are too many scattered business associations, hundreds of them, which need to come together through an apex body to have a stronger voice.”
Professor John Asafu-Adjaye

According to him, a regulated, unified front for businesses will also help government in tax collection.

“This can be made a regulation to ensure that business registrations can only be effected when SMEs belong to business associations that are controlled by an apex body”.
Professor John Asafu-Adjaye

The Greater Accra Regional Chair of the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), Tsonam Akpeloo, explained the call is in the right direction as the initiative will help to create a unified front for business associations across the country.

“AGI has been in existence for six decades, and we have been at the forefront of business advocacy for many years. We are happy to lead the charge to create this new initiative.”
Tsonam Akpeloo

Significant Hurdles To Proactive Private Sector Involvement

Despite years of cooperation between the public and private sectors, a 2016 World Bank report on Ghana revealed significant barriers to aggressive private sector engagement.

These impediments include fragmentation of the stakeholder landscape; lack of trust – as many engagements by businesses with government barely yielded any results; and ill-defined ownership and management, including disconnect between vision and action by most businesses.

ACET however maintains that a successful economic compact will require a vision for the private sector around which all stakeholders such as government, AGI, Ghana National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GNCCI) and development partners will collaborate.

The Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), Association of Small Industries, Ghana Employment Association, Ghana Real Estate Developers Association, Freight Forwarders Association, and many other significant organizations were present at the meeting.

It can be recalled that to transform SMEs, ACET admitted the first cohort of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) into its new private sector initiative – ACET Business Transform (ABT).

The ABT programme was a flagship project of ACET’s burgeoning Private Sector Development (PSD) unit, targeting early- to growth-stage SMEs that have a manufacturing or assembly component in their business model.

The first 10 SMEs, based in Ghana, were competitively selected from more than 70 applicants by an independent panel of consultants.

The ABT programme was also ACET’s response to challenges in the local content SME ecosystem – through technical and managerial interventions, mentorship, coaching, direct funding, and as well prepare SMEs into investment-readiness and support their integration into competitive global value chains