Ghanaian Entrepreneur and International Lawyer, Elikem Nutifafa Kuenyehia is impressing on government, the need to remove the minimum capital requirements for foreigners interested in investing in certain sectors of the economy.

 According to him, the current one million dollars required of such investors in the GIPC Act is rather a disincentive for attraction of Foreign Direct Investments. 

Mr. Nutifafa Kuenyehia was the main speaker at the meeting which under the theme “Foreign-Direct Investment in Ghana: Opportunities for Ghanaian Entrepreneurship”.

Speaking to JOY BUSINESS after addressing the meeting, he said “What we are saying is that you are not welcome. If you don’t have big money, you are not welcome. It’s unrealistic, especially in these days and age where all across the continent the economies are opened for people to go into business with. What the government should care about is If it’s not laundered money, if you have good intentions and it would support the economy... not what the size of your investment is.

“If I have $5,000 and I want to invest in Ghana, I should be able to invest $5,000. Because, with $5,000 … Do you know the number of businesses you can start with $5,000?  In 2006 my own Law Firm, my total investment was $5,000. Of course, Law Firms have different financial requirement. If it were another business, I couldn’t have gotten a foreign direct investor to invest in it. So forget minimum requirement.” He added.

The 15^th MTN business world meeting focused on how entrepreneurs can play their role in attracting foreign direct investments. 

He also highlighted the unprofessionalism, bureaucracy and delays in registering businesses and acquiring permits in Ghana as a major disincentive for attraction of Foreign Direct Investments into the country.

““So I can do a research as land’s registry or company’s registry and say that as at X,Y date, the results is Y. But then, they didn’t look into some file. So, because they didn’t look into that file, the information am giving is inaccurate. And it’s very frustrating but despite, I think at terms as computerization and so on, when you are doing a transaction and you’re looking for up-to-date information, sometimes it’s a nightmare, you guys would have to go and make sure you sit through mountains of foolscap, files and stuff like that”

“And I think that, that can be frustrating because sometimes I have to tell them that unfortunately I can’t sit…In London I can sit on my desk in my London office, 20 minutes, I can register a company for you. And I can find out who owns whatever the company has. I can do that and even 20 minutes is too long. And I have to confess to them and say ‘you know what, it’s a manual system and I do this etc. It’s frustrating because sometimes you can’t understand why basic information; who owns this company and what’s on the register you can’t provide it… sometimes you almost question your competence as a lawyer” he explained.

MTN has meanwhile launched a surveillance solution app as part of its M2M Security solutions delivered through the MTN business platform.