Covid-19: Ghana Industries demand tax cut, incentives for businesses

The Association of Ghana Industries, AGI is calling for a tax cut and incentives for businesses in the country.

Business research assessing the impact of Covid-19 on businesses shows that only 81 large businesses will be able to recover from the impact of the pandemic in June 2021.

Chief Executive for AGI Seth Twum Akwaboah said the government needs to evaluate its incentive packages to see if they are also benefiting the large businesses in the country.

"Government is trying to intervene in the... it was the tax that was first then the next question will be if you have brought a stimulus package what extent is it really covering the entire spectrum of business, especially industry. If it is not, then your intervention may also not... so when we are engaging government we go into all these details back by the data and I'm sure we will get a good response."

A survey conducted by the Africa Business Panel, a market research firm, also revealed that only 3 percent of business professionals in Ghana fear the company they work for will not survive the Covid-19 crisis.

According to the survey, which interviewed 2,166 business professionals across the continent, Ghanaian companies are least able to take advantage of the crisis. Also, none of the Ghanaian participants felt that their company was thriving due to the crisis.

Across the continent, 6 percent of business professionals said they do not expect their companies to survive the Covid-19 crisis.

About two-thirds of the African companies said they were struggling but would survive, whereas almost a third of companies—29 percent—said they were doing well and the near future was looking good.

One in 25 African companies said it was doing better than ever due to the crisis.

In North Africa, 9 percent of the companies said they were doing better than ever due to the crisis, by far the highest score in Africa. South Africa came in second, having a score of 5 percent.

A participant from Côte d’Ivoire, working in the construction sector, said his company was diversified, so for the moment the impact of the crisis was low.

“But if the crisis is not over very soon, we shall be impacted,” he added.

Another participant from South Africa, working in the manufacturing sector, said: “I am wasting my time interacting with government to secure social security payments for some of my employees. The government is generally unresponsive.”