President John Dramani Mahama has said government would continue to take tough and bold decisions to help stabilize the economy and to create a better environment for businesses to thrive.

Addressing the quarterly Ghana Investment Promotion Centre breakfast meeting of Chief Executive Officers of various companies, President Mahama said a strong and resilient economy was key to the success of businesses.

The Presidential Breakfast Meeting with the Ghanaian Business Community afforded both parties the opportunity to have intimate dialogue and to discuss pertinent issues relating to the private sector.

He said an unstable economy and business atmosphere was dangerous for the private sector as the uncertainty made planning and decision-making difficult, and this did not augur well for the sustainable growth of businesses.

In a speech that touched on areas of government’s focus such as electricity supply, macro-economic stability and socio-economic development, President Mahama said efforts to stabilise the economy was showing all the right signals.

He said government was working to bring down the deficit, halt the depreciation of the cedi to make it more predictable for the business community to plan and to reduce the debt to GDP ratio, which is on the decline.

President Mahama said government target is to bring the public debt to GDP ratio to 40 per cent by 2021 from the current level of about 67 per cent while the wage bill would be brought down to about 49 per cent of total revenue.

In this direction, he said, government had put a cap on commercial and non-concessionary borrowing in line with the debt management strategy.
On the power crisis, President Mahama said he understood the impact of the crisis on the business community and their contributions to the country’s revenue as far as the payment of taxes was concerned.

He said while the power situation had improved considerably in line with the investments into the sector, the adjustment in the power sector would soon launch Ghana into an era of over generation, necessitating the need to sell to neighbouring countries or to expand local demand to absorb the increased capacity.

President Mahama said government would continue to explore various off-grid options for communities to boost generation capacity.

Mr Carl Nelson, Chief Operation Officer GIPC, in his welcome address, said the quarterly Breakfast seminar series are organized to develop dynamic and innovative solutions for the challenges encountered to further enhance government policies.

He said the event has been a great platform for business leaders to network with their peers and at the same time it was geared towards influencing government policy formulation at the highest level.