Ghanaian investor Dr. Sangu Delle has urged African governments, investors and entrepreneurs to make it easier to trade and do business across the continent, and to mobilize local capital to build large, sustainable companies.
Speaking recently on PanaGeniusTV, a YouTube channel, Dr. Delle said AfCFTA’s potential will only be realized if governments remove practical barriers and commit to implementation.
According to him, the continent needs laws and policies that reduce barriers and facilitate scaling across borders. As he put it, “I wish we had an African scaling act that all 54 countries pass. That just reduces the barriers and really facilitates, and that would allow us to really take advantage of the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement.”
Delle observed that freedom of movement remains a major obstacle to intra-African commerce. “How can we move goods and services across the continent freely when we can’t even physically move?” he asked. He noted the practical inequality of travel documents, saying, “It’s easier to travel with a U.S. passport across Africa or a French passport across Africa than to travel with a Ghanaian passport.”
He tied the policy gap to a deeper need for a mindset shift. “Where is our African sovereign dignity? If we don’t respect ourselves, why do we expect others to respect us?” he said, arguing that national confidence must accompany policy reforms.
On capital and scaling, Delle described the progress and the setbacks in Africa’s venture ecosystem. He said that when he first founded Golden Palm Investments, the ecosystem was under $40 million, and by 2022 it had grown to $6 billion before falling back to $2.5 billion after recent shocks. He added that Africa still receives less than one percent of global venture capital and highlighted gender imbalance in funding. “Women still receive less than 3 percent even though we’re a continent with highest female entrepreneurs in the world,” he said.
Delle said more local long-term capital is needed to underpin sustained growth. He pointed to pension assets and suggested Africans should mobilize domestic funds for investment in innovation and scaling. He said Ghana had liberalized rules to allow some pension investment into alternative assets but added that movement has been limited.
He also urged improvements to capital markets to create deeper liquidity for larger enterprises. “I don’t understand why we have country stock exchanges,” he said, adding, “If we actually come together, why can’t we have a Pan-African stock exchange, or even at the very least, regional?”
Delle called for regulatory simplification to reduce the friction of doing business across borders. He said streamlined licensing, taxation and sensible rules would encourage entrepreneurs to scale and investors to commit longer term. He said that, without such steps, promising startups and investors face unnecessary transactional barriers.
He framed these economic prescriptions as part of a broader push for Africans to invest in themselves and in each other. “If we are not able to unite ourselves as a people and allow for freedom of movement where you don’t need to have to get visas,” he said, “we’re missing out on so much potential.”
Source: www.KumasiMail.Com/Joseph Ziem
