The day’s engagement, held in Tamale, was to examine Ghana’s corporate governance practices, legislations and regulations geared towards strengthening efforts to promote standards.

It was also to discuss the challenges and expectations of the corporate governance needs in relation to cross-border and intra-Africa trade to scale up businesses.

The engagement was on the theme: “Corporate Governance as a Catalyst for the Implementation of African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).”

Participants included stakeholders across public institutions, private companies, Medium and Small Scale Enterprises (MSMEs) as well as traditional leaders.

Some challenges outlined by participants at the forum included insecurity at Ghana’s borders, unavailability of appropriate technology, unreasonable duty charges, activities of immigration officers that push people into resorting to illegal routes, among others.

Most Rev Prof Emmanuel Asante, Chairperson of the NAPRM-GC, speaking during the forum, said the challenges that were discussed would be considered in a report with recommended policies to address them.

He expressed hope that the report would encourage government to investigate the challenges to empower people to produce goods of international standards.

He urged traders to utilise corporate governance as it pushed for team work rather than sticking to individual approaches.

Mr Peter Katwesige, Monitoring and Evaluation Officer at the NAPRM-GC Continental Secretariat, South Africa, said the engagement was a primary data collection avenue that would lead to a report to be presented to the president of Ghana, who would present same report at a forum of Heads of State.

He said it provided a platform for technical engagement by African countries to share experiences with one another and development partners.

He said aside from the challenges, the stakeholders mentioned some good practices that other countries could follow.

He said the government needed to be keen about the quality and capacity of indigenous equipment manufacturing to ensure value addition in the local market and competence in the global market.

Alhaji Alhassan Shani Saibu, Northern Regional Minister, said the review of Ghana’s progress report to showcase implementation of recommendations was remarkable, adding government had embraced target review into economic community to formulate policies to help businesses take advantage of AfCFTA.

He said, “Categories of businesses in the trade sector, including informal sector need more attention as they constitute the majority, and their successes will tremendously impact the generation and distribution of wealth in Ghana and Africa at large.