Ease Of Doing Business: Ghana Ranked Low In The Latest Report -

The World Bank Group has scrapped the publication of its Ease of Doing Business report, dashing Ghana’s hopes of a higher score in the face of massive regulatory reforms in the business environment since 2019.

Ghana has now been confined less prestigious private sector minded-reports and rankings, and would’ve to devise methodologies to sell its itself to global financial backers.

Also, the country need to acquaint drives with smooth out business registration and land acquisitions, just as guide organizations through monetary and functional difficulties.

In 2019, Ghana dropped four spots to the 118th position out of 190 nations studied and held that spot in the 2020 edition of the publication, which evaluates how countries makes it easy or frustrates business operations.

The reports had cited insolvency resolutions, contract enforcements, tax payment, cross border trade and property registration by businesses as the constraints holding down the country’s ranking.

The country is expecting better scores in the next reports subsequent to carrying out the Business Regulatory Reform program that saw the entry of the Companies Act, 2019 (Act 992), the Corporate Insolvency and Restructuring Act, 2020 (Act 1022) and the decoupling of the Register of Companies from the Registrar General’s Department.

In the interim, experts have tipped Ghana to make a superior score in the 2021 and subsequent reports.

Meanwhile, some business executives and experts say they anticipated a superior score for Ghana – a quantum jump from the 118 positioning – yet that is fine. Nonetheless, they are expecting better changes to improve the ranking.

The Ease of Doing Business rankings had grown to become the tool on how to assess the competitiveness of an economy in attracting and retaining investments and with it gone, countries such as Ghana would have to find credible alternatives to sell their story.

History

Launched in 2002, the Ease of Doing Business report was the World Bank’s flagship publication and had become popular with investors and governments as a trusted gauge of how reforms were impacting the business environment.

It published 17 editions and each publication studied how regulations by governments had improved or constrained business operations.

It often covered 12 areas of business regulation, including starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes and trading across borders.

The rest were enforcing contracts, resolving insolvency, regulation on employing workers and contracting with the government.

While the first 10 measures were included in the EBD rankings, the last two were not.

The higher a score, the more constraining a country’s economic environment was found to be to investors and businesses in general.