The Savannah region has emerged as the latest region with a “moderately free” environment for businesses and entrepreneurial activities in the country.
The Africa Centre for Entrepreneurship and Youth Empowerment (ACEYE), a policy think-tank, ranked the region first in its 2024 edition of the Regional Entrepreneurship Freedom (REF) index.
The assessment highlights regional disparities and identifies areas where entrepreneurship freedom can be strengthened using 14 indicators.
They include regulation, financial freedom, freedom from corruption, monetary freedom, freedom from government, fiscal freedom, investment freedom, property rights, information freedom, market freedom, cultural freedom, technological freedom, labour freedom, and trade freedom.
Speaking at the report launch, Mr Emmanuel Acquah, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of ACEYE, said the region performed creditably well except in the area of financial freedom and the fight against corruption.
The Eastern, Volta, and Ahafo regions were ranked second, third, and fourth respectively as they were categorized as “mostly unfree”.
The North-East, Northern, and Upper East regions were ranked fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth respectively as they were categorized as “repressed”.
Mr. Acquah explained that the REF Index is an essential tool for evaluating the autonomy and decentralization of entrepreneurial decision-making across regions.
Despite Ghana’s ranking as “mostly unfree” by the Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom 2024, he said the REF Index sought to empirically assess entrepreneurship freedom at a granular level.
He noted that the assessment was conducted through a survey where a mixed-method approach was adopted to solicit responses from 3,200 respondents. “We incorporated ethnographic methods, interviews, and observation into the analysis..,” he said.
The study has among other things recommended the reduction of tax burdens for SMEs, streamlining activities of state agencies that perform duplicate roles in the SME industry, and that the Ghana Revenue Authority improves redress mechanisms for SMEs at the regional level.
