GEA holds an advocacy forum to promote friendly business environment at the local government level in Ghana

The nature of the business environment at the local level is a key determinant of enterprise performance. It also helps in the creation of job opportunities and generation of tax revenues for local government authorities.

According Section 12 of the Local Government Service Act 2016 (Act 936), the MMDAs are responsible for the formulation and execution of plans, programmes and strategies at the local level. This makes their actions and inactions crucial in determining the health of the business environment at the local level.

However, employers within the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, which mostly operate at the local government level maintain that the current arrangements (policies, plans and programmes) of the MMDAs do not create enabling business atmosphere for them to sustain and grow their businesses.

It is against this background that GEA organized an advocacy forum to share the findings of a study it conducted on the outlook of the business environment at the local level and the level of involvement of enterprises in the decision-making processes in the country.

In sharing the survey findings with participants, Professor William Baah-Boateng indicated that majority of the enterprises (62.4%) surveyed revealed that the outlook of business at the local government level was not good.

He added that most enterprises (i.e. 68.2%) revealed that the rate of increase in the various levies and charges by the MMDAs negatively impacted their cost of operations. In addition, the lack of innovative measures in mobilizing revenue at the local assemblies was said to reduce the confidence of businesses in paying their levies.

Among the key recommendations was the need for MMDAs to step up efforts towards sensitizing their taskforce and officials regarding the need for business continuity and their dealings with employers. This was said to be imperative for establishing and sustaining a cordial relationship between the two parties.