Renowned entrepreneur, Elikem Kuenyehia, has described as atrocious, GIPC’s minimum capital requirement for foreign investors intending to enter into joint venture business with Ghanaian counterparts.
Under the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre Act, 2013 (Act 865), a minimum equity capital of not less than US$200,000 in cash or capital goods is required from any foreign investor who intends to enter into a joint venture partnership with a Ghanaian, who does not have less than a 10% equity participation.
Addressing captains of industry at the 15th MTN Business World Executive Breakfast Meeting, the entrepreneur said it misses the point because even though the Fortune 500 companies are investing in the country, they are not the typical Ghanaian FDI investor.
“The typical foreign investor seeking to invest in Ghana is the guy who comes here on holiday, falls in love with a girl at the Kokrobite beach, for instance, and decides to invest in her salon. He has US$5,000 but GIPC is saying, no we don’t want your US$5,000.
“SMEs make up 90% of our economy so if you are debarring them from also benefitting from foreign direct investments, then we are missing the boat,” Kuenyehia said.
Mr. Kuenyehia emphasized that as long as foreigners’ money were not laundered and the individuals had passed background checks, they should be allowed to invest, no matter the amount.
“This is a fundamental thing we need to address to ensure that anyone can invest,” he added.
Education
Kuenyehia also stated that Ghana had to rethink its entire educational programme and focus more on good primary, secondary, vocational and technical training, “instead of worthless degrees.”
“We have done an amazingly terrible job with our educational system because we are focusing on all these degrees that are not even worth the paper that they are written on. People come out of the university and basically cannot write sentences,” he said.
He noted that, if the foundation was not right, it would be difficult for individuals to be a part of the value chain.
“The most powerful thing you can give anybody is a good education so if people are deprived of such, right from the beginning, they are not even entering the value chain. We therefore need to rethink our whole educational system focusing on a good primary, secondary, technical and vocational space,” Kuenyehia explained.