By kofi ahovi
The Private Enterprise Federation (PEF), a coalition of business associations and chambers has called for comprehensive reforms to improve business registration and application of permits and certificates in the country.
According to PEF, if this is done it would reduce the delays and cost of business registrations and also reduce of goods and services in the country.
The Chief Executive Officer of PEF, Nana Osei-Bonsu added: “If we are able to reduce the cost of doing business in the SMEs sector and reduce the delays as well we will cut inflation at least by 30% in the country”.
He lamented that a study commissioned by PEF and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2011 revealed that there were 145 business licenses among the ministries, department and agencies as well as the metropolitan, municipal assembly and district assemblies in Ghana.
Out of these, Nana Osei- Bonsu mentioned the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) permit, EPA certification, Town and Country Planning Department (TCPD) and Department of Factories Inspectorate (DOFI) requirements.
He noted that there were no coordination among the ministries, department and agencies and the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies in issuing those certificates, adding that the operation of EPA for instance was not decentralised and applicants for environmental permit certificate had to travel to Accra to access such services.
The delays and efficiency associated with acquiring business certificates such as fire, environmental and business operating permit is having a negative toll on the private sector businesses, Nana Osei-Bonsu stated.
“The delay and the inefficiency associated with acquiring business license add additional cost to the private sector,” he said, and attributed the problem to lack of logistics and personnel for the above-mentioned agencies”.
Nana Osei-Bonsu added that the processes of acquiring licences and permits for business operations are key determinants of private sector development and economic growth and for that reason the nature and mode of implementation of those licences and permits have great effects on the private sector.
“Any delay causes in acquiring the licences and permits add to the cost of doing business”, he stated.
“The private sector is ready to pay additional charges which will help to improve the efficiency and address the challenges facing the GNFS, EPA, TCPD and the DOFI,” he said.
Adding his to the sentiments expressed by the PEF CEO, the Vice Chairman of Parliamentary Select Committee on Environment, Science, Technology and Innovative, Ben Azure regretted that although the private is the engine of growth, it is not given the right information and right the documentations which is a setback in the country.
“Like, we are looking at the private sector; you come to realize that when these documentations are delayed they add cost to the business which they also pass on to the final consumers”.
You realize that sometimes when the documentations are delayed so much that even at times encourage some people to do illegal works or illegal registrations, he stressed.
“Let’s look at the building and construction, somebody wants to start his build and to get documentations done it takes several months and the person is eager to go ahead to start his build he will be forced to use illegal means to get the documentations before building the house”.
Mr Azure therefore urged the various ministries, departments and agencies as well the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies to speed up the registration and documentations of businesses in the country.
Charles Okyere, the Managing Partner of Lawfields Consulting, a leading consulting firm in Ghana appealed to the government as a matter of urgency to set up one-stop shop centre to deal with business registrations in Ghana.
Mohammed Alhassan, a Principal Officer of the Town and Country Planning Department (TCPD) said the deparment recognizes the difficulties the business operators go through before they register their businesses.
He added: “We have also conducted study to find out that the turnaround time was too short which the 2016 World Bank Doing Business Report pegged at 200 days. We also found that there were sheer bureaucracies among others which delayed documentations”.
“With this background, we also set up a process to do reforms on our side but as we speak the reforms have gone far. We started have harmonized guidelines for issuing licenses which is about 80 to 90% complete. But we should not wait to have 100% before we can rollout”.
Thankfully, the lots of the challenges are in-house, for example we hope that DCEs who chair the statutory approval committees which have the mandate to approve licences were most of the time not available. As long as it takes a DCE to be available for the permit application to be considered, these applications remain there, Mr Alhassan stated.
“Going for inspections, we have to inspect project sites before permits are considered. In the past, the Town and Country Planning Department, and the Works and Housing Department, among others had to inspect project sites separately but now we do joint inspections to speed up the process of issuing permits”.
Now, we started joint inspections here in Accra so anybody who wants to make a field observation there is a date set for all the agencies to join one bus for the inspection. So, when they return to consider an application it does not take time, according to him.
“We also notice that people simply do not know what is complete requirements should come along with when they need building permits. It is basic that it does not matter what development you are going to take, you need clear evidence of title to land that you own the land.
We noticed that though it is outside the purview of the Country and Town Planning it causes delays so we have relooked at all of these and asked ourselves if it takes this long to get a land certificate or to have the evidence and considering that apart from Accra, parts of Central Region and Kumasi or so it is not in all areas that you can have a land certificate in Ghana”.
Indeed, the process of acquiring licenses and permits for business operations are a key determinant of private sector development and economic growth. The nature and mode of implementation of these licenses and permits have great effects on private sector development. Any delays caused in acquiring these licenses and permits add to the cost of doing business.
Concerns have been expressed by quite a number of operators in the private sector, about the application processes and procedures for permits, certificates and licenses. In fact, the statutes governing some of those requirements have not seen any changes since 1945 and for others since 1963.
Complaints by some business operators are that, the current system is fraught with unnecessary delays and red-tapes that have made it cumbersome to operate a business. This, some people believe have not only contributed to lowering business morale but hampering business development and competitiveness to be precise.
The World Bank in its flagship report for 2016entitled “Doing Business 2016: Measuring Regulatory Quality and Efficiency”, ranked Ghana 10th out of 47 countries in Africa. It ranked Ghana 114th in the world out of the 189 countries that were assessed, exempting the area of labour market regulation and considering ten areas: measuring regulations affecting 11 areas in business, starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency.
The Private Enterprise Federation (PEF), a coalition of business associations and chambers has called for comprehensive reforms to improve business registration and application of permits and certificates in the country.
According to PEF, if this is done it would reduce the delays and cost of business registrations and also reduce of goods and services in the country.
The Chief Executive Officer of PEF, Nana Osei-Bonsu added: “If we are able to reduce the cost of doing business in the SMEs sector and reduce the delays as well we will cut inflation at least by 30% in the country”.
He lamented that a study commissioned by PEF and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2011 revealed that there were 145 business licenses among the ministries, department and agencies as well as the metropolitan, municipal assembly and district assemblies in Ghana.
Out of these, Nana Osei- Bonsu mentioned the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) permit, EPA certification, Town and Country Planning Department (TCPD) and Department of Factories Inspectorate (DOFI) requirements.
He noted that there were no coordination among the ministries, department and agencies and the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies in issuing those certificates, adding that the operation of EPA for instance was not decentralised and applicants for environmental permit certificate had to travel to Accra to access such services.
The delays and efficiency associated with acquiring business certificates such as fire, environmental and business operating permit is having a negative toll on the private sector businesses, Nana Osei-Bonsu stated.
“The delay and the inefficiency associated with acquiring business license add additional cost to the private sector,” he said, and attributed the problem to lack of logistics and personnel for the above-mentioned agencies”.
Nana Osei-Bonsu added that the processes of acquiring licences and permits for business operations are key determinants of private sector development and economic growth and for that reason the nature and mode of implementation of those licences and permits have great effects on the private sector.
“Any delay causes in acquiring the licences and permits add to the cost of doing business”, he stated.
“The private sector is ready to pay additional charges which will help to improve the efficiency and address the challenges facing the GNFS, EPA, TCPD and the DOFI,” he said.
Adding his to the sentiments expressed by the PEF CEO, the Vice Chairman of Parliamentary Select Committee on Environment, Science, Technology and Innovative, Ben Azure regretted that although the private is the engine of growth, it is not given the right information and right the documentations which is a setback in the country.
“Like, we are looking at the private sector; you come to realize that when these documentations are delayed they add cost to the business which they also pass on to the final consumers”.
You realize that sometimes when the documentations are delayed so much that even at times encourage some people to do illegal works or illegal registrations, he stressed.
“Let’s look at the building and construction, somebody wants to start his build and to get documentations done it takes several months and the person is eager to go ahead to start his build he will be forced to use illegal means to get the documentations before building the house”.
Mr Azure therefore urged the various ministries, departments and agencies as well the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies to speed up the registration and documentations of businesses in the country.
Charles Okyere, the Managing Partner of Lawfields Consulting, a leading consulting firm in Ghana appealed to the government as a matter of urgency to set up one-stop shop centre to deal with business registrations in Ghana.
Mohammed Alhassan, a Principal Officer of the Town and Country Planning Department (TCPD) said the deparment recognizes the difficulties the business operators go through before they register their businesses.
He added: “We have also conducted study to find out that the turnaround time was too short which the 2016 World Bank Doing Business Report pegged at 200 days. We also found that there were sheer bureaucracies among others which delayed documentations”.
“With this background, we also set up a process to do reforms on our side but as we speak the reforms have gone far. We started have harmonized guidelines for issuing licenses which is about 80 to 90% complete. But we should not wait to have 100% before we can rollout”.
Thankfully, the lots of the challenges are in-house, for example we hope that DCEs who chair the statutory approval committees which have the mandate to approve licences were most of the time not available. As long as it takes a DCE to be available for the permit application to be considered, these applications remain there, Mr Alhassan stated.
“Going for inspections, we have to inspect project sites before permits are considered. In the past, the Town and Country Planning Department, and the Works and Housing Department, among others had to inspect project sites separately but now we do joint inspections to speed up the process of issuing permits”.
Now, we started joint inspections here in Accra so anybody who wants to make a field observation there is a date set for all the agencies to join one bus for the inspection. So, when they return to consider an application it does not take time, according to him.
“We also notice that people simply do not know what is complete requirements should come along with when they need building permits. It is basic that it does not matter what development you are going to take, you need clear evidence of title to land that you own the land.
We noticed that though it is outside the purview of the Country and Town Planning it causes delays so we have relooked at all of these and asked ourselves if it takes this long to get a land certificate or to have the evidence and considering that apart from Accra, parts of Central Region and Kumasi or so it is not in all areas that you can have a land certificate in Ghana”.
Indeed, the process of acquiring licenses and permits for business operations are a key determinant of private sector development and economic growth. The nature and mode of implementation of these licenses and permits have great effects on private sector development. Any delays caused in acquiring these licenses and permits add to the cost of doing business.
Concerns have been expressed by quite a number of operators in the private sector, about the application processes and procedures for permits, certificates and licenses. In fact, the statutes governing some of those requirements have not seen any changes since 1945 and for others since 1963.
Complaints by some business operators are that, the current system is fraught with unnecessary delays and red-tapes that have made it cumbersome to operate a business. This, some people believe have not only contributed to lowering business morale but hampering business development and competitiveness to be precise.
The World Bank in its flagship report for 2016entitled “Doing Business 2016: Measuring Regulatory Quality and Efficiency”, ranked Ghana 10th out of 47 countries in Africa. It ranked Ghana 114th in the world out of the 189 countries that were assessed, exempting the area of labour market regulation and considering ten areas: measuring regulations affecting 11 areas in business, starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency.
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