Businesses seeking incentives under the Government’s 24-Hour Economy Programme will be required to meet agreed performance targets on employment, investment and productivity to retain the support.
Mr Augustus Goosie Tanoh, Presidential Advisor on the 24-Hour Economy, said the proposed framework would shift the focus from granting incentives based on promises to measurable economic outcomes.
He said businesses would agree with the Government on specific targets based on their investment plans and projected performance, which would subsequently form the basis for assessing their eligibility.
“We agree with businesses on what targets we as a country believe they will achieve based on their own submissions about the business and their business prospects,” he said.
Mr Tanoh spoke on the sidelines of a Business Outsourcing Services Association of Ghana (BOSAG) event in Accra.
Incentives To Have Sunset Clauses
He said employment creation would be among the key indicators used to assess businesses benefiting from the programme.
Mr Tanoh explained that incentives would not be granted indefinitely, with each package expected to contain a sunset clause, generally lasting between four and five years.
At the end of the period, the incentives would be reviewed or withdrawn to enable Government to redirect support to other sectors and value chains.
“You can’t have incentives for the rest of the time. After four or five years, those incentives drop off so that support can be extended to other sectors and value chains,” he said.
He said the approach would ensure that businesses receiving government support continued to deliver the economic benefits for which the incentives were granted.
Public Register For Beneficiary Companies
Mr Tanoh said the Government would establish a public register of businesses benefiting from incentives under the programme to strengthen transparency and public confidence.
Companies receiving support would be publicly identified, while their annual reports would provide information for assessing whether they were meeting the agreed performance requirements.
“If a company receives incentives because it is investing significantly in the economy, that information will be on a public register and its annual reports will show whether it is meeting the requirements for which the incentives were granted,” he said.
He said the arrangement would allow the public to monitor the use of incentives and reduce concerns about how government support was allocated.
The ultimate objective, he said, was to ensure that incentives contributed to business expansion, productivity gains and job creation, generating economic returns greater than the cost of the concessions to the State.
New Incentive Packages Expected
Mr Tanoh disclosed that details of some new incentive packages under the 24-Hour Economy Programme were expected to be announced in the coming months.
He also noted that some businesses were unaware of incentives already available under Ghana’s existing investment regime, despite meeting the requirements to access them.
“We have met businesses looking for incentives and when we open the statute books, we discover they already qualify for some of the incentives. In many cases, they simply do not know,” he said.
He said the Secretariat’s workplace readiness programme was helping businesses identify incentives for which they qualified and understand the procedures for accessing them.
The programme targets businesses preparing for expansion, new investments or a shift towards shift-based operations under the 24-Hour Economy framework.
It also supports firms to use available incentives to reduce operating costs and improve competitiveness.
Incentives Seen As Key To Competitiveness
Mr Tanoh said incentives remained an important policy tool given the high cost of doing business in Ghana.
“At this point in time, incentives play an important role in reducing costs and increasing competitiveness. It is something we must take very seriously,” he said.
He added that existing legislation already allowed major investors to negotiate tailored incentive packages under specified conditions, particularly for investments exceeding US$50 million.
The use of business incentives has, however, remained a subject of debate, with concerns over whether tax concessions, duty exemptions and other forms of government support generate sufficient economic returns.
Mr Tanoh said the performance-based system would help address such concerns by ensuring that incentives were linked to measurable outcomes.
He expressed optimism that the approach would encourage responsible investment, strengthen investor confidence and advance the broader objectives of industrialisation, export growth and job creation under the 24-Hour Economy Programme.
