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Demand for bribes from gov't officials rising - American investor

The Managing Director of Alafei Foods, Claude Convisser, has revealed that many businesses in Ghana do not survive because government officials demand bribes before they get assistance to develop.

Managing Director of Alafei Foods, Claude Convisser

He said many investors who came to Ghana for business purposes have fled as a result of high bribes demands by government officials adding that the demand for bribes is rising in the country daily.

"For a business to thrive and survive in a long term, it can’t be incumbent that it requires demands of bribes by government officials. I have heard so many stories of foreign investors who've been met with the demand of bribes from government officials, not just this government but the previous ones as well, that the businessmen have fled, and it's unusual that I am stubborn, I have stayed here and persisted that I am not going to pay a bribe," he said.

"How can a businessman pay all the people he meets in the process of building a business, how can they grow the business and this is why many foreign investors went back with their monies. I remember I met the assemblyman for a community in Yendi and he asked me to give him a percentage of my business and I said there’s nothing my business will give to him. This is something I’m doing to help your area," he noted.

He recounted how the MCE for Yendi, Alhaji Hammed Abubakari Yussif told him that he does not sound convincing that he is capable of doing business in the area because he does not own a car.

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According to the MCE, anytime the American investor Claude Convisser visited his area on issues of establishing the factory, he does not come with his own car but always driven by rented tricycles.

The MCE said "You have been seeing him in your communities, somebody coming to establish a factory, have you ever seen him riding his own bicycle to your place, has he ever come with a motorbike, does he have a car, nothing. He always comes with a rented yellow yellow and you believe that this person in a yellow yellow can establish a factory."

Claude Convisser made this known to register his displeasure over the frustrations he went through over the past five years to establish a food and vegetable factory at Zugu in the Yendi Municipality.

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