Don’t Frustrate Investors… Osafo Maafo Warns Civil Servants

Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo-Maafo, has admonished public and civil servants who often frustrate potential investors through their unfriendly attitude to change.

According to him, the contributions of the investors were crucial to reducing the high unemployment and creating wealth for the citizenry.

Speaking at the Inauguration and Orientation Programme for the Ten Member Team on Infrastructure for Poverty Eradication (IPEP) Implementation in Kumasi recently, he urged civil and public servants to act as facilitators to potential investors that visit the country to create businesses, noting that the government wants to make the country fertile for the private sector to flourish.

The senior minister said the Akufo-Addo administration was relying heavily on the private sector to lift the economy from its current messy state to an appreciable level within the shortest possible time.

He also added that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration also wants to make the country conducive to attract investors from Africa and beyond.

The laudable government programme is under the Ministry of Special Development Initiatives.

It has categorised the country into three belts geared towards eradicating poverty and fairly distributing wealth among the people.

The three zones include the Coastal Belt Development Authority made up Greater Accra, Volta, Central and Western Regions.

The Middle Belt Development Authority comprises Ashanti, Eastern and Brong Ahafo Regions.

The third zone named as Northern Development Authority Belt is also made up of the Northern Region, Upper East and Upper West Regions. Government has created the belts to rapidly develop the country.

He said programmes such as the 'One district, One factory,' 'One village, One dam,' small businesses development and the one million dollar per constituency, among others, would ensure prosperity.

Mr. Osafo Maafo noted that government has grouped the regions with similar business potentials to accelerate growth, and urged the 10-member committee for each of the region to work closely to ensure positive results.

He debunked claims that the NPP administration was working at a slow pace in terms of the introduction of programmes to boost the economy, saying that most of the government's programmes require legal backing, hence the delay in the start of some of the programmes.

Mavis Hawa Koomson, Minister of Special Development Initiatives, stated that government's decision to introduce IPEP clearly showed that it was determined to eradicate poverty and create wealth for everybody.

Ashanti Regional Minister, Simon Osei Mensah, charged the committee members to identify investment potentials in their various areas so that they could readily supply the information to investors to accelerate growth.

From I.F. Joe Awuah Jnr., Kumasi