DAILY GRAPHIC, Saturday, February 24, 2012, Pg.28. New policy to raise household enterprise productivity

Story: Mary Ankrah

A POLICY matrix and action plan for the consideration of government towards raising productivity and reducing risk of household enterprises in Ghana has been drafted.

The matrix, dubbed: “National Strategy and Action plan for Informal Enterprises (IEs),” which is expected to support  government-initiated programmes and actions, was drafted by the Ministry of Employment and Social Welfare (MESW) in partnership with the World Bank.

It is anticipated that the policy would help develop and sustain the growth of the IEs and position them as the pivot for job creation, poverty reduction and national development.

The policy is also aimed at creating the enabling environment for IEs to thrive in order to boost local economic development.

At a consultation workshop held in Accra, the Deputy Minister of Employment and Social Welfare, Mr Antwi-Boasiako Sekyere, in an address read on his behalf said the informal economy of Ghana constituted about 84 per cent of active labour force whose incomes depended on income from household enterprises and that productivity of the enterprises could be enhanced to improve the household living standards for many Ghanaians.

The workshop aimed to solicit the input of stakeholders into the drafted informal sector policy action plan and make recommendations to improve on it.

According to Mr Sekyere, about a third of the Ghanaian labour force work in  informal enterprises, and it was against this background that the national committee on informal economy was established with the mandate to lead and co-ordinate the process of policy formulation on the informal economy.

He observed that the National Pension Act (2008), Act 766, which provided for a three-tier pension scheme, was geared towards the inclusion of the informal economy into the National Pension Scheme while efforts were made to include the informal sector in the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT).

He gave an assurance that the government had not relented in its quest for a sustainable solution to the problem of employment in the country and that all measures that would help generate employment would be exploited.

In addition,  Ms Louise Fox, a representative from the World Bank, encouraged the government and stakeholders to build on the successes created and educate operators of IEs  to be able to exploit other opportunities.