It’s undeniably one of Africa’s most ambitious emerging economies, which loves to punch above its weight. That notwithstanding, its private sector still has many dreams unfulfilled, but a new vibrancy begets optimism.
In Ghana’s business conversation, nothing can be as trite as the mantra of the private sector being the engine of growth, and yet, not much on the ground indicates that this aspiration has traversed the difficult terrain from bombast to concrete manifestation.
“I ask myself; ‘how do we make that desired impact, as private sector, in Ghana’s economy?’” says Kwaku Agyeman Duah, the fresh-faced father of Ghana’s Private Enterprises Federation (PEF), the umbrella organisation for majority of the country’s business associations that all together rope in more than 80% of private business operators.
Elected into office on June, 29, as Chairman of the newly constituted 13-member Governing Council of PEF – following the organisation’s transformation from a Foundation to a Federation as part of efforts to refocus the private sector – Mr Duah has been pushing for the strengthening of internal structures of private sector organisations and businesses to enable the sector to take its rightful place in the country’s economic space.
“I believe that if the private sector is playing its rightful part and we have a measurement whereby we assess its impact on the economy, and it can be monitored all the time, then obviously we’ll be getting somewhere,” he opines.
To him, there must be a metric of measurement to show that the private sector has specific measurable impacts on the national economy, and then the government will be forced to look at the private sector with regards to its needs.
But first there must be the building of capacities within the private sector so as to embolden it to move to the centre of the business space. And Duah is primed to lead that effort, at least, judging by his track record.
What is known is that Duah, since he applied for an advertised job for the CEO of the Association of Oil Marketing Companies (AOMCs) and got employed, has been able to transform the hitherto lackluster association, whose members seemed to know far less about the industry than its regulators, into a vibrant and assertive player.
He undoubtedly drew heavily on his experience from his work in another commodity, metals, where operators were well ahead of regulators. Also, his vast experience gained from working with multinationals both in Ghana and abroad, all his working life, has imbibed in him a good appreciation of standards and structures.
“So we started by getting to know the law. And I believe that businessmen should know the regulations governing their sectors very well. It becomes very expensive if, because of your neglect of the law, you actually did something which you normally are not expected to do,” Duah explains.
First he realised their base of operation, a small office in the Goil Office at Agbogbloshie, was not good for the organisation, “so we moved on to a new office at Labone, and now here we are at GIMPA.”
They then put in a structure, which allowed members to elect their own executives; hitherto, it was such that, there were founding members who took up all the positions.
The oil industry, Duah acknowledges, is a knowledge based industry and being bereft of it hinders effective performance, “and so we’re trying to bridge the knowledge gap. So far, I wouldn’t say we’ve gotten to where I think we should, but it’s still a vast improvement on what we had previously.
“At least our measure of success is borne out by our membership growth. When I came in we had a membership of 23, now we’re over 80. So obviously we’ve made some progress but that’s not the end of it,” he says.
Now, he wants to do same for the larger body of private sector businesses and their associations.
“We’re thinking of a nation-wide drive to classify the various businesses into their categories of micro, SMEs, and big businesses and have a data base of all so we can have a currency of their needs and what type of support will be appropriate to those needs,” Duah reveals.
What is clear is that because of varied interests within the private sector associations, they are sometimes bogged down with trying to forge a common front and, that being the case, even a well-intentioned government may have difficulty addressing their concerns.
They have found a way around this challenge by allowing each sector to come up with one key area of concern, at any given time, which is then collated and presented as a solid case.
“The association is ticking, we have a myriad of issues but we’re working together,” Duah says, adding that there are a lot of things the CEO of PEF, Nana Osei Bonsu, is doing, which can be supported and, “we want to really push things to a higher level of engagement and advocacy.”
Duah believes that over the years, because the private sector has been doing quite well, it’s attracting the attention of government and fostering deeper engagement, exemplified by the Kufour administration creating a private sector portfolio and appointing Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom to head it and also followed by the current administration appointing Rashid Pelpuo, as Minister of State at the Presidency with a special charge to deepen public-private partnership.
He acknowledges that the on-going dialogue between the public and private sectors has been very constructive, though it has slackened a bit in recent times, and needs to be accelerated at full throttle so as to reap the benefits in the shortest possible time.
This is the more imperative given that the structure of the private sector in Ghana and sub-Sahara Africa has a peculiar challenge.
“You have so many small scale industries and you have some few big ones up there. But the small scales are not able to graduate to the middle and then to the top,” Duah bemoans.
“How do we bridge that gap? It’s about having interactions and collectively addressing our challenges and creating a viable environment that allows many more of our start-ups and small businesses to have the opportunity to grow and not die.
“And that is one major advocacy I’m looking to push vigorously in my three-year tenure as chair of PEF. Once we get these things aligned – and we know that will take a lot of effort on the part of government and other state institutions, as well as, the private sector – we will get there. It’s tough, undoubtedly, but I’m very optimistic about the future of the private sector,” says the quintessential optimist.
“That’s what we all need,” says Duah, “for the private sector to be in the driving seat to drive the growth of our economy, a growth that touches the lives of all denizens with everyone benefiting from it.”
It appears Enterprise Ghana is on the cusp of breaking new grounds.