The Minority Leader in Parliament, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, has criticised the nation’s fiscal climate, warning that the private sector is being strangled by a punitive combination of high interest rates, skyrocketing utility bills, and a fragmented tax regime.

Addressing a high-level gathering at the Kwahu Business Forum on Friday, 3rd April 2026, the lawmaker argued that the government’s rhetoric on job creation is being undermined by economic realities that make it nearly impossible for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to break even.

Mr Afenyo-Markin, whose address was informed by recent consultative sessions with the Ghana Union of Traders Association (GUTA) and the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), focused heavily on the barriers facing the youth. He took particular aim at the banking sector, where lending rates continue to hover at levels that deter capital investment.

“You cannot preach entrepreneurship while charging an entrepreneur twenty-five per cent interest on a loan to buy their first equipment,” he stated, drawing applause from the gathered entrepreneurs.

The Minority Leader further illustrated how basic operational costs, particularly electricity, have turned essential business tools, like refrigeration, into financial burdens in the tropics.

“You cannot tell a young person to open a food stall and then charge them electricity tariffs that make running a refrigerator in Ghanaian heat a commercial liability,” he noted. “That is not entrepreneurship as liberation. That is entrepreneurship as punishment.”

The address identified a triple threat currently confronting the private sector: the high cost of capital, rising utility tariffs, and a web of overlapping taxes that complicate compliance and drain liquidity.

Mr Afenyo-Markin argued that the current approach lacks a human face and fails to account for the cumulative impact these pressures have on a single business unit.

The Minority Leader signaled that his side of the House would not remain silent on these issues. He pledged to lead a legislative push for reforms aimed at easing the regulatory and financial weight on local enterprises.