African Partner Pool supports businesses to expand supply base

The Africa Partner Pool (APP) is looking to increase opportunities for local businesses to market their products and services to a wider market.

The private sector initiative by Invest in Africa brings together leading companies across sectors to develop local enterprise and support investment in Ghana.

The pool of buyers comprises about 90 percent of international and multinational companies.

However some local industries, like oil and gas, demand high technical capacity to meet the supply needs of companies within the pool.

With a one million dollar grant from the African Development Bank (AfDB), the initiative is supporting the competence development of local supplies. This is to encourage the buyers to seek solutions locally.

APP Manager, Ben Manu tells Luv Biz it is cost effective for multinational companies to source solutions locally.

“When you source abroad, it’s expensive; the goods or the materials you need to supply that service you need to import; the human resource you need to deploy these goods, you need to also import and that’s expensive,” he said.

There are currently ten commercial buyers who on regular basis put up tenders and notices on the partner pool to attract the registered 310 supplies who can meet the requirements for the supply of the goods and services.

Mr. Manu says there are plans to expand the buyer-supplier base.

“The vision by end of next year is to grow the number of buyers to 20 so ten more and we’re doing that because we want to improve the opportunities that this local supplier base can have… and the suppliers we’re also seeking to grow them by 1,000 to give the buyers options to find, in a competitive way, suppliers that can meet their demand”.

Businesses in the Ashanti and Brong Ahafo regions have been engaged to tap into the opportunity.

President of the Association of Ghana Industries, James Asare-Adjei, reiterated the resolve of the Association to support members survive in the face of the challenges in operations.

“Irrespective of the challenges and the problems, one thing that the entrepreneur knows how to do best is to survive in the face of challenges,” he expressed. “We are there as a leading private sector advocacy group to support you and that is why the APP project comes in handy”.

The power crisis, high cost of borrowing and depreciation of the cedi against other foreign currencies are major challenges confronting local businesses.

Story by Kofi Adu Domfeh 

Economic Justice Network of Ghana welcomes ECOWAS suspension of EPA decision

The Economic Justice Network of Ghana (EJN) has welcomed the decision of the ECOWAS Heads of State and Government to postpone the final decision on the adoption of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between West Africa and the European Union.

The West African economic bloc has suspended the decision for two months pending the resolution of technical problems raised by some member-countries of the community, notably Nigeria.

EJN in a statement noted the decision by the Heads of State affords all stake-holders in all countries of ECOWAS the opportunity for meaningful dialogue on fundamental issues of economic development of the region and its people that have been raised by the agreement.

“We welcome in particular the formation of a four-country technical committee to examine the technical concerns of member-countries, and urge the countries concerned to open the process up for genuine in-put by all ECOWAS citizens. And we are willing and ready to support the committee, in particular Ghana’s role in the committee, with our skills, capacities and resources to enable development-friendly outcomes,” it said.

According to the Network, the ECOWAS-EPA on the table will undermine government revenue, eliminate jobs, destroy local production, jeopardise the industrial prospects of member countries, constrain South-South co-operation, and undermine sovereign capacity to make policy to enable development. 

Ghana’s Minister of Trade and Industry has indicated resolve to conduct a thorough fiscal audit of the EPAs before Ghana’s agreement to adopt it. 

The EJN is urging government to facilitate an open, inclusive and meaningful process of national consultation of all stakeholders in Ghana.

The Network also calls on President John Dramani Mahama to use his role as President of the Authority of Heads of State and Government of ECOWAS “to ensure that the opportunities provided by the decision for the re-think of the EPA are fruitfully exercised in support of the genuine development, economic transformation and integration of our region”.