APSS Urges Private Sector Bill Adoption to Enhance Business in Africa
The Africa Private Sector Summit (APSS) has called on African governments to consider the adoption of a Charter on Private Sector Bill of Rights (PSBoR) to facilitate the emergence of an enabling environment for trade and investment on the continent.
APSS stressed that the PSBoR would be an accompanying instrument to the existing Regional Economic Commissions (RECs) and African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) protocols by governments of all African countries and the African Union.
The organisation suggested this in a statement issued yesterday and signed by Prof Kingsley Moghalu, the chairman of the APSS board of directors and advisory board.
"We in the APSS urge all African leaders and aspiring leaders to make democracy a true opportunity for prosperity for the continent’s 1.3 billion people," said the statement.
According to APSS, the PSBoR will contribute to actualising the vision of the African Union’s Agenda 2063, creating "prosperity for Africans through intra-African" trade.
Considering the potential of the AfCFTA (which has been ratified by 47 African countries as of December 2023) to lift 30 million people out of poverty and boost Africa’s income by $450 billion by 2035, the APSS stated that "businesses and the private sector as the primary drivers of wealth creation," needed to be empowered and enabled with "a supportive environment, to get on with this natural task."
It added: "This is why we are advocating the adoption of a Charter on Private Sector Bill of Rights (PSBoR) that facilitates the emergence of an enabling environment for trade and investment in Africa as an accompanying instrument to the existing Regional Economic Commissions (RECs) and African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) protocols, by governments of all African countries and the African Union."
The PSBoR, it said, outlines 24 specific rights that all African governments should adopt to support businesses.
The APSS said it was working, along with partners including the Pan-African Chamber of Commerce (PACCI), strong support of the AfCFTA secretariat and the Africa Business Council (AfBC), towards a target of the formal adoption of the PSBoR by the heads of state and government of the African Union in 2025.