Ghana: Pan-African Business Forum calls on Obama to strengthen MCA
The Pan-African Business Forum (PABF) has called on President Barak Obama to strengthen the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) which was initiated by George Bush administration.
The call was made at a press conference held in Accra over the weekend by the PABF.
Speaking to this reporter, the President of the Forum, Prince Prosper Agbesi lauded the contribution of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and the Millennium Challenge Account to the economic growth of Africa. He however noted that, “when we do our own analysis in terms of the two programmes that is AGOA and Millennium Challenge Account, we believe that the Millennium Challenge Corporation is more comprehensive and very good for the people of the continent. It has got a lot of success for the continent. We are not saying AGOA is a failure but is not what we need at the moment because we are not looking for custom incentives, we are looking at infrastructure development. If Obama has to do something, we want him to improve upon that one. ”
Agbesi believes that a lot more needed to be done since the MCA, which had aimed to put together about $2.4 billion for the global compact, ended up with only $1.5 billion.
“We hope, indeed expect that President Obama, himself of African extraction, will commit to designing and driving an even more impactful development assistance programme through which America can propel Africa’s economic renaissance than those two afore mentioned ones. This we believe would be a most profound and lasting legacy of President Obama, when the history of the African renaissance, within the global community is eventually written,” Agbesi said.
Agbesi commended Ghana for qualifying for the second compact of the MCC, noting that the climate for doing business in Ghana was improving fast.
The Forum took the opportunity to congratulate President Barak Obama on his re-election, Ghana’s President-elect John Dramani Mahama on his election and South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma on his re-election to lead the African National Congress(ANC) to the 2014 Presidential election. The Forum urged the various leaders to draft reforms that will create good business atmosphere for sound economic activities.
The Pan African Business Forum is a conglomerate of like-minded entrepreneurs, statesmen and professionals from all over Africa who share the vision of using international public private partnership between African states and foreign development partners and private investors on a Pan African continental level.
By Pascal Kelvin Kudiabor
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