GIPC launches 19th Ghana Club 100 awards

The Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) has launched the 19th edition of the Ghana Club 100 (GC 100) Awards to celebrate firms for their resilience and support for the country’s growth.

The annual compilation of 100 outstanding companies in Ghana’s business landscape has been brought back after a two-year break due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mr Yofi Grant, Chief Executive Officer of GIPC, said this year’s awards was to pay tribute to firms that continued to survive and supported the country’s development agenda despite the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia-Ukraine war.

This year’s GC 100 will be on the theme: “Ghana’s private sector; a catalyst for post-pandemic economic transformation.”

Speaking at the launch in Accra yesterday, Mr Grant noted that the survival and contribution of firms amid the crisis, which started in 2019, had supported the country’s growth and deserved commendations.

He said: “The critical essence of this year’s Ghana club 100 is to pay significant tribute and herald all the corporates who have through all these struggles survived and still create opportunities for people to go to work and live with families.”

Mr Grant said while the country was still grappling with the impact of two global developments- [COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war], which were unpredicted, some corporates were still making life happen for others.

He noted that the world was almost turned into turmoil, but corporate entities taught people how to survive, saying: “It’s not the Government, it’s the corporates that have survived and are doing great things. So, GC 100 this year echoes that story of the resilience of the human character through enterprises and corporates.”

Lauding the efforts of the private sector in the country’s effort to come out of the economic challenges, he said the growth of the country was through enterprises that invested their “soil, sweat, and toil to make things happen.”

“The Government can do all that it wants to do, but if you don’t have a growing private sector that’s well-motivated, we’ll have an economy, but we’ll not grow,” Mr Grant emphasised.

The CEO touched on Foreign Direct Invest (FDI) and said despite the ongoing economic challenges – inflationary pressures, exchange rate depreciation, and rising fuel prices, Ghana remained an attractive destination for investment.

He pointed out that the country offered enormous opportunities to investors with its rich natural resources that needed value addition and served as Africa’s commercial centre as it hosted the Secretariat of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA).

Mr Yaw Amoateng Afriyie, Deputy CEO, GIPC, emphasised that the awards were to recognise corporate organisations that had contributed to economic growth despite the negative effects of recent economic challenges in the country.

He explained that Ghana’s private sector served as the catalyst for post-pandemic recovery and that their contribution to the country’s growth during the economic challenges required that they be celebrated to spur them on to do more.

Starting in 1998, the Ghana Club 100 awards is to promote effective corporate governance, thus, serve as benchmark for corporate excellence and recognition of the achievements and contribution of the private sector to Ghana’s development.

Sponsored by the KGL Group – technology innovation, gaming and commerce firm, the awards’ partners, KPMG, will collate, analyse, and rank the corporate entities and select the top 100.

Currently, limited liability companies with less than 50 per cent of Government’s shareholding can take part in the GC 100 awards unless the company is listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE).