The Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) is to liaise with the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), Private Enterprise Foundation (PEF), Ghana National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GNCCI) to identify the best 100 companies operating in the country.

The GIPC, which had previously relied on voluntary bids for inclusion in the prestigious Ghana Cub 100 companies’ league, says the new approach is to ensure the right companies are identified and showcased to the world.

CEO of GIPC, Yofi Grant, in an interview with B&FT on the sidelines of the presentation of prizes to winners at the Young Entrepreneurs Forum (YEF) in Accra, said the Centre is being proactive.

“So far, so good; the big challenge that we have had in the past and we are trying to work on is we want to genuinely showcase Ghana’s top-100 companies. In the past, because we had difficulties in getting all the companies, it has been voluntary. So, the companies themselves volunteered their annual results and were assisted by an independent firm – EY; but this time we are trying to be a bit more proactive in actually looking for the top companies. Some companies just don’t want to be part of the ranking, for whatever reason,” he said.

For the GIPC boss, going out there and hunting for companies with the help of some accounting and advisory firms to try and genuinely find the top 100 companies “will be more representative than those who only volunteer their financials for assessment and inclusion”.

The Ghana Club 100 (GC 100) is an annual compilation of the top-100 companies in Ghana to give due recognition to successful enterprises, and was launched in 1998 by the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC).

Companies making it into the Ghana Club 100 are to serve as role-models for the private sector and provide a forum for corporate Ghana to interact with government at a high level.

Among the objectives of Ghana Club 100 is to develop an open information culture within the Ghanaian corporate sector, provide incentives for improved performance, develop uniform criteria for evaluating this performance, and to establish an annual database of the top-100 performing companies.

It also has eligibility criteria which state all entrants must be limited liability companies; for companies with government interest, government ownership should be less than 50%, unless the company is listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange.