Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has said Government has begun implementing policies and programmes intended to make Ghana the most business-friendly country in Africa.

These include ensuring fiscal discipline, cutting the budget deficits, managing the national debt and undertaking measures to fight corruption, he said.

Vice President Bawumia said this when a delegation from Stanbic Bank- Ghana, and some senior officials from its parent company, Standard Bank Group from South Africa, paid a courtesy call on him at the Flagstaff House, in Accra.

The delegation, led by Alhassan Andani, the Chief Executive Officer of Stanbic Bank-Ghana, was at the Presidency to discuss issues relating to the economy and affirm their commitment to doing business in Ghana to help drive the country’s development agenda.

Dr Bawumia said the New Patriotic Party won the 2016 General Elections based on the assurance of bringing drastic change to Ghana’s economic fortunes and that the Nana Akufo-Addo’s led Administration was determined to deliver in that regard.

“This is a reformist government. Our message for change was on economic transformation, curbing corruption and that is fundamentally what we are doing.

“We are keeping a close, laser focus on the economy so that we do not get any surprises, so we can stay ahead of the curve.

“The fundamental source of what we intend to do is solid fiscal discipline and consolidation. The deficit is expected to be brought down from 9 to 6.5 per cent, and we are cutting down government expenditure,” Dr Bawumia said.

He said the government was working around the clock to ensure stability in the provision of utilities such as electricity and water to reduce cost of production and manufacturing.

Vice President commended Stanbic Bank for its immense contribution made to the country over the years and called on the private sector to partner government to implement programmes designed to make the lives of Ghanaians better.

Mr Helmut Engelbrecht, Executive Head of the Bank in-charge of Corporate Banking, Africa Regions, pledged the commitment of the Standard Bank Group, to support Ghana’s development agenda.

“We are ready to share experiences gained in the 20 African countries where we operate, to help you further modernise the Ghanaian economy,” he said.

The delegation included Kwamina Asomaning, Executive Head, Corporate and Investment Banking, Stanbic Bank-Ghana; Madam Sylvia Inkoom, Executive Head, Corporate Banking, Stanbic Bank-Ghana; and Mawuko Afadzinu.

The rest included David Humphrey, Group Executive Head, Power and Infrastructure – Standard Bank Group, Simon Ashby-Rudd, Group Executive Head, Oil & Gas Sector – Standard Bank Group; and Jaco Burger, Group Executive Head, Corporate Banking, South, West and Central Africa – Standard Bank Group.

The Standard Bank Group is one of South Africa’s largest financial services groups.

Mr. Kofi Sekyere, Chairman of Kumasi City Mall, has said it is about time Ghanaians saw shopping malls as potential markets for locally produced and manufactured goods to enable retail shopping facilities to contribute towards the country’s import substitution strategy.

Mr. Sekyere made this observation when the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, jointly opened the US$95 million Kumasi City Mall in the Ashanti Regional capital Wednesday.

“In economic term, these facilities (shopping malls) serve as ready-markets for locally produced and manufactured goods and can therefore contribute substantially towards our country’s import substitution strategy,” Mr. Sekyere said in his welcome address.

Citing the wide range of agricultural produce stocked by the malls as ready markets waiting to be exploited, Mr. Sekyere urged local farmers, entrepreneurs and the entire business community to begin positioning themselves to take advantage of the many opportunities the advent of malls have brought.

He said Ghana’s import bill could be reduced considerably if even half of the produce offered in the various malls were supplied locally, stressing that the availability of such markets can be a major boost to the government’s innovative One-District -One-Factory agenda.

“It is my vision that, with time, our malls will be majority populated by local businesses and stocked with Ghanaian manufactured products. I’m convinced that this small private investment could be the beginning of the revival of Kumasi’s and indeed Ghana’s manufacturing base, especially as the number of malls increase over time.

The President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo re-echoed the same sentiments as he decried the tendency for supermarkets and malls to trade in imported goods at the expense of locally made products.

As the president commended Delico Kumasi Limited for delivering an imposing business infrastructure to the city of Kumasi, he charged retail facilities in the country to sell local goods as a way of promoting Ghanaian industries and entreated the management of Kumasi City Mall to lead the way by ensuring that at least 20% of products on offer in the mall are made in Ghana.

President Akufo-Addo and Otumfuo Osei Tutu II jointly unveiled a monument which dedicated and christened Kumasi City Mall’s imposing Food Court to the late Queenmother of Ashanti and mother of the Asantehene, Nana Afia Serwaa Kobi Ampem II.

President Nana Akufo-Addo has expressed worry over the influx of cheap imported goods in most shopping malls and supermarkets in the country, to the disadvantage of locally produced goods, which constitute less than five percent of goods on sale.

The development, the president said at the opening of the Kumasi City Mall, weakens local producers while also deepening the low patronage of made in Ghana products.

President Akufo-Addo said: “We cannot create the hundreds of thousands of jobs for the masses of our young people if the sustenance of our economy is import dependent and import driven as well as being dependent on raw material exports.”

He insisted that the malls increase their intake of locally made products to be in line with government’s economic programme of adding value to raw materials in the process of rapid industrialisation.

He asked the owners and operators to pay attention to the low sale of locally produced goods increase the percentage sold, and engage local producers and entrepreneurs, including farmers.

Initiatives introduced in the budget, the president said, are aimed at stimulating private sector activities and shifting the focus of the economy from taxation to production, and urged the private sector to take advantage of this new focus which is offering opportunities to local ingenuity and production.

He said new enterprises, such as malls, the world over, have sparked the creation of jobs and investments and have also led to increased local spending.

The president also charged the youth to take advantage of the opportunities with the establishment of the Mall, as well as the government’s ‘Planting for Food and Jobs’ initiative, which was launched recently.

“Organise yourselves and get involved in this initiative. I am certain that my admonishing to shop owners of this mall will not go unheard, they will surely buy from you if your produce meet the standards, which I am confident it can,” he stated.

The Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Kumasi City Mall, Mr. Kofi Sekyere, said the mall is the third straight shopping centre development that have undertaken following the Achimota West Hills Malls.

He disclosed that a whopping US$250 million have been invested in these projects, of which the Kumasi Mall accounts for about 40 percent of the investment, at the cost of US$95 million.

The establishment of the KCM, he said, is a repackaging of the old marketplace to meet the needs and demands of a 21st century Kumasi, given the entrepreneurial nature of the people in the city.

The Kumasi City Mall comes with a trading space of 18,500 square metres within a total land area of 15.43 acres, and has the potential to be expanded up to 28,000sq metres.

The mall has 1,250 car parking bays, with what is now known to be the biggest basement parking facility in the country.

Ms. Eva Mends, a Chief Economics Officer has been appointed as the Acting Director of Budget at the Ministry of Finance,the first ever female to be appointed a Director of Budget at the Ministry.

Ms.  Mends, the Group Head of the Public Financial Management Reforms, joined the Ministry as a National Service Person in 1991. Positions she has held include, Head of The Americas Desk in 1998, Head of Budget Development in 2006 and Group Head of Public Financial Management (PFM) reforms in 2013.

As Group Head, she was instrumental in leading major reforms that include gender responsive budgeting, Programme Based Budgeting and lately the development of the new Public Financial Management Act.

She is an alumni of University of Ghana, where she studied Political Science with Economics and also has an Executive Masters in Public Administration from GIMPA. She has undertaken short courses at the Harvard and Duke Universities. She takes over from Mr. Sampson Asare Fianko, who reverts  to his former position as a Deputy Controller and Accountant General.

Other appointments include Mr. Eugene Asante Ofosuhene, as the Acting Controller and Accountant General.   Mr. David Klotey Collison, a Chief Budget Analyst and Mr. Sampson Akligoh, a Technical Advisor to the Minister of Finance have also been appointed Director of Public Investment Division and Financial Sector Division of the Ministry respectively.

Mr. Ofosuhene comes to this position with a wealth of experience. As a former Deputy Controller and Accountant General, he was responsible for management of the Government Treasury.

He acted creditably on several occasions as the Controller and Accountant General in the absence of the substantive Controller. He is a Public Finance Expert and has Consulted for the World Bank on the assignment, ‘Strengthening the role of Public Private Partnerships in the Local Government Assemblies’.

Mr. Ofosuhene is a Fellow of The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (U.K. & Ireland) F.C.C.A and Institute of Chartered Accountants (ICA) Ghana. He has a Master’s degree in Business Administration (Finance option) from the University of Ghana. He is also a graduate of the London School of Accountancy. He takes over from Mr. Seidu Kotomah, Controller and Accountant General, who has been reassigned to the Ministry of Finance.

Mr. Collison joined the Civil Service as an Assistant Budget Analyst at the Ministry of Finance in December, 1995. Until his recent appointment as Director in charge of Public Investment, he was the Group Head, Budget Development and was responsible for Compensations Management and Coordination of the National Budget Development Process from February, 2015.

Mr. Collison graduated with a BSc (Hons) degree in Agriculture, majoring in Agricultural Economics from the University of Ghana in 1993 and also has a Master’s in Business Administration (Finance option) from the same university in 2001.

Mr.  Akligoh, has over 10 years’ working experience in the financial services industry working in advisory, asset management and as an economist.

Until his appointment to the Ministry, he was the Managing Director of InvestCorp, a financial services firm in Accra, Ghana.  He served as a Vice President at Databank where he was Head of Research and a Fixed Income Strategist.

He also worked at SIC Financial Services Limited and with ADC African Development Corporation AG in Frankfurt which was acquired by Atlas Mara in 2014. 13.            Mr. Akligoh also served as an Adjunct Lecturer in International Economics at Ashesi University College in 2014.

He holds a BA in Economics and Law (First Class Honours) from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology in Ghana, and a Master’s degree in Economic Policy and Corporate Strategy from the Maastricht School of Management in the Netherlands.

Dun&Bradstreet(D&B) Ghana and Invest In Africa, IIA, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), to support small and medium scale enterprises(SMEs) to make them investor ready through credit referencing.

With the signing of the MOU, it is expected that IIA and D&B will support SMEs on the African Partner Pool (APP) by; providing Information from D&B on the best way to manage books in order to easily access investment and finance, providing consent for D & B to conduct a credit report for SMEs, and share it with potential investors and partners.

D & B will  also be the exclusive Credit Information Reporting Company through which all foreign companies seeking  to do business with local companies on the APP can obtain a business profile report or credit information report

IIA, a cross-sector partnership of companies with the vision to create thriving African economies, has been set up to give businesses access to skills, finance and new markets. This is done through its key initiatives the African Partner Pool (APP) an online business platform that connects international companies to quality validated local businesses. www.africanpartnerpool.com.

Another initiative of Invest In Africa is the Business Excellence Programme, a combined Development Partners & Private Sector funded programme with the aim of building businesses to become more competitive.

Dun & Bradstreet is the leading provider of business information for risk management, sales & marketing, supply management and risk consulting decisions worldwide.

Signing the MOU, Adebowale Atobatele(D&B Ghana Country Manager)said: “We are excited about our partnership with Invest in Africa. It forms a core part of our objective in Ghana which is to create and deliver superior value to all stakeholders.  Our partnership with Invest in Africa (Ghana) will help boost the confidence of investors in Ghanaian businesses‎ while at the same time help local business and their owners develop the right profile to attract the right type of investments or financing that they require to grow their business.”

The APP Manager, Ibrahima Aminu stated that, ‘’this is one of the initiatives IIA is taking to prepare SMEs for access to finance, the agreement with D&B will be of immense value to the SMEs on the APP as it will assist the SMEs on the APP to understand the requirements of financial institutions in applying for access to finance’’.

Dun & Bradstreet joins the cross-sector group of partners that IIA is currently working with which includes Newmont Mining, Tullow Ghana, AB & David Law, GE, Millennium Development Authority (MiDA), Ecobank, UT Bank, Guinness Ghana, EY, GIPC, Modec Ghana, Societe Generale, AGI, GIPC.