By Frederick ASIAMAH & Ohemaa A. AMOAKO
The Ghana Investments Promotion Center (GIPC), the state’s investment promotion agency, last Thursday launched the 16th edition of the prestigious Ghana Club (GC) 100 Awards in Accra.
This year’s GC 100 awards are scheduled for Friday 10th November 2017 and would be organized by the GIPC in partnership with Unicef and EY.
The theme for the awards is “Industrialization – A tool for job creation and accelerated economic development.”
Presenting an overview of the awards at the media launch in Accra, Yoofi Grant, Chief Executive Officer of GIPC, said the Centre will “use this year’s programme as a launchpad for government new industralisation drive.”
He also described the GC 100 as an opportunity to push small and medium enterprises up the business ladder, eventually turning them into blue chip companies. “We are very insistent that we should play a role in pushing companies into the top ladder,” Grant said of GIPC’s desire.
Beyond that, the GIPC will use this year’s edition to promote partnership between Ghanaian manufactures and their foreign counterparts and to showcase Ghana’s industrialization potential and its impact on employment creation and skills development.
The GC 100
Newmont’s Akyem Project in Ghana, called Newmont Golden Ridge, was adjudged winner of the 15th edition of the GC 100.
Being a GC 100 company has a special impact on employee performance and outlook, says Ama Bawuah, Senior Director at Newmont Gold Ghana Limited in charge of Government Relations.
“Employees are empowered to deliver their best and appreciate the Ghana Club 100 award as a recognition of their hard work and commitment to the deliverance on their strategic performance and operational efficiency,” she said.
The GC 100 event was first held in March 1998. The event remains one of the flagship programmes of the GIPC. It is mostly aimed at introducing a system of ranking the top 100 companies in Ghana whilst encouraging and nurturing the private sector to develop and grow to compete internationally.
The objective of the GC 100 awards is to develop database of the top 100 viable companies as an annual “who is who” or lottery system on the Ghanaian corporate business calendar and use creative media and activities to promote Ghana’s corporate capacity.
This year’s event will highlight companies and present awards in the following strategic sectors: best company in agriculture and agribusiness, financial sectors, information and communication technology, services, infrastructure, petroleum and mining sectors, manufacturing, tourism, health and medication.
There will also be awards for GC 100 best list companies’ on the Ghana Stock Exchange, largest company, most profitable company and the fastest growing company.
Meanwhile, discretionary awards will include UNICEF’s Coalition of Children’s Award to be presented to the company with the most child friendly policies, corporate social responsibility award, the GC 100 company of the future award.
The ranking for the prestigious awards 2017 is based on three criteria, namely: the size of the company by turn over (revenue), the growth rate and the profitability. The growth rate and profitability should be calculated every three years after the existence of the company. Also, there should be consistency in the companies’ size, growth and profitability; that is their net assets.
According to Daniel Ababio, EY – the technical partners for collating the results – a company cannot use good performance in a single to win. He empahsised that companies must present three years audited accounts as part of the application process.
On the scoring, he said the size of the company takes the highest marks of 40%, with growth and profitability taking 30% each.
