Dr Nora Bannerman Abbott, Chief Executive Officer of Sleek Garments Export Limited, has urged government to prioritise fixing Ghana’s internal industrial bottlenecks, warning that domestic policy and institutional inefficiencies pose a greater threat to manufacturers than external tariffs.
Dr Bannerman Abbott, who has over four decades’ experience in the textile and garment industry, said while the extension of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) offers renewed opportunity for exporters, Ghana risks missing out if longstanding internal challenges are not urgently addressed.
Her company, which has operated for more than 30 years, manufactures and exports shirts to the United States, including products sold in major retail outlets and uniforms for pharmacy chains such as Walgreens and CVS Pharmacy.
She noted that the United States represents an estimated $30 trillion consumer market and described AGOA, first passed under former US President Bill Clinton, as a make-or-break policy tool for Ghana’s manufacturing, job creation and export diversification drive.
Dr Bannerman Abbott, who represented the private sector on Ghana’s AGOA Implementation Committee that secured Ghana’s AGOA visa in 2000, said the trade arrangement once allowed the country to export more than 6,000 products duty- and quota-free to the US market.
Although AGOA lapsed last year, she said it has been extended to December 31, 2026, with a retroactive provision from September 30, 2025, enabling exporters to reclaim duties paid during the lapse.
She, however, cautioned that the extension should not distract policymakers from addressing structural weaknesses within Ghana’s business environment.
“Our immediate concerns are not external tariffs. Our greatest challenges are internal,” she said, stressing that high production costs, taxation burdens and energy tariffs have made Ghanaian products uncompetitive, even within the domestic market.
According to her, only about 12 percent of companies in Ghana pay the full range of taxes, leaving a small pool of compliant businesses to shoulder what she described as “Herculean” tax obligations, while an estimated 80 pe cent operate outside the formal tax net.
She called on the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) to reform its engagement with the private sector by widening the tax base and reducing pressure on compliant firms.
“If the tax net is widened and taxes are reduced, GRA can still meet its targets without burning out the few businesses that are compliant,” she said.
Dr Bannerman Abbott commended President John Dramani Mahama for engaging industrialists and acknowledging challenges facing the sector, expressing hope that his administration’s reset agenda would create a more enabling environment for industry.
She also raised concerns about high electricity tariffs, describing Ghana as having some of the highest energy costs in Africa, which she said undermined competitiveness under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
She criticised the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) for what she described as recurring tariff hikes attributed to operational inefficiencies and revenue collection challenges.
“High tariffs add to the cost of manufacturing and make us uncompetitive against our competitors,” she said, adding that businesses using prepaid meters were effectively pre-financing ECG’s operations.
She urged the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) and Members of Parliament to scrutinise tariff adjustments and protect manufacturers from what she termed unfair practices.
Dr Bannerman Abbott warned that failure to address tax inequities, high energy tariffs and regulatory inefficiencies could drive more manufacturers to relocate to neighbouring countries such as Côte d’Ivoire, Benin and Nigeria, which are perceived to offer friendlier business climates.
She stressed that industrial growth was essential for job creation, particularly for unemployed youth, noting that sustained unemployment posed risks to national security and social stability.
“For Ghana to become Africa’s industrial hub, we must reverse internal unfair practices that are inadvertently slapping tariffs on Ghanaian businesses and making manufacturing costs too high,” she said.
She called for urgent investment in reforms that would lower the cost of doing business, strengthen science and productivity, and enable Ghanaian manufacturers to fully leverage AGOA and other trade opportunities.
