Mr Kwame Kesse-Agyapong, the Deputy Director of Investment Services Division, Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC), has urged Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) and traditional authorities to make land available for investment purposes.
He explained that the country’s land tenure system made it difficult for investors to secure lands for investments, which hampered the investment opportunities of the country.
Mr Kesse-Agyapong was speaking at a regional sensitisation forum as part of a two-day sensitisation tour organised on Thursday by the GIPC in the Eastern Region on the theme “Grow in Ghana, Grow with Ghana”.
Mr Kesse-Agyapong emphasised the need for verified land to build a land bank database, which would allow investors to view available lands and liaise with owners to boost investment in the country for economic growth.
The sensitisation forum and tour aimed to promote investment opportunities and economic growth in the region and provide on-the-spot assistance to businesses.
He also highlighted the importance of educating businesses on how to make their projects bankable and have solid business plans and good financial statements.
He said, “We need to also educate them on funding or financing to help them expand their business and hence we have brought them together to create the environment and link them up to financing institutions.”
Mr Kesse-Agyapong said the GIPC was committed to their mandate to attract, promote, and facilitate investment in Ghana, adding that such sensitisation tour was to fulfil such commitment to help contribute to the economic growth of the country.
Mr John Donkor, the Chief Director, Regional Coordinating Council (RCC), who spoke on behalf of the Eastern Regional Minister, encouraged the RCC and MMDAs to develop their regional, district and city investor’s profiles or guidelines and fashion out clearly its investment development plans for its local business enterprises to buy into.
“The local businessmen and women are important, given the fact that their activities generate wealth for the MMDAs, the region and country as a whole,” he said, and encouraged the MDAs to identify development projects which could comfortably be marketed by the GIPC as Public Private Partnership (PPP) to enhance the overall development of their respective districts and the region as a whole.
FROM AMA TEKYIWAA AMPADU AGYEMAN, KOFORIDUA
