Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) account for a
significant proportion of the economy of most of African
nations. But the private sector is still facing a number of
hurdles which are in the way of its growth.
Adequate corporate governance is one area holding SMEs back,
as is the lack of private sector work, says Letitia Adu-Ampoma,
director at Peverett Maxwell, a corporate governance
consultancy firm in Accra, Ghana, and a speaker on the IBA's
'Corporate governance for African business: the role of lawyers
on a continent of small and medium-sized enterprises'
session."We don’t have the essential fundamentals
and therefore we can’t scale, whether it is
through foreign direct investment or through local companies
applying themselves locally," she says. "Different kinds of
corporate governance cause challenges, it tends to start in
banking and finance, and because of the centrality that has to
the economy it has a wider impact." ...