By: Francis Abedi
All is set for the commencement of Phase Two of the 2025 Integrated Business Establishment Survey (IBES), Ghana’s fifth economic census. The nationwide data collection exercise, to be undertaken by the Ghana Statistical Service, is scheduled to begin on 10th of this month and will end in September.
A training workshop has been held in Kumasi for 226 field officers who will be deployed across the Ashanti Region for the exercise.
The Integrated Business Establishment Survey aims to strengthen national economic planning and support Ghana’s development goals.
The survey will also provide critical insight into Ghana’s business landscape, covering structure, employment trends, capital formation and sector-specific challenges. Over three thousand field officers will be deployed nationwide to collect data from business establishments, including those operating from fixed structures, open spaces and markets places.
Speaking at the closing ceremony of a three week training workshop in Kumasi for 226 field officers who will be deployed in Ashanti Region for the exercise, the Director of Programmes, Monitoring and Evaluation at the Ghana Statistical Service, Mr. Emmanuel George Ossei says the exercise is to help make informed decisions about the Ghanaian economy.
“This is what we call the integrated business establishment survey. And for this, we are going to businesses, establishments in the country, and gather data about them to inform policy decisions about businesses and establishments in the country”.
The Ashanti Regional Statistician, Mr. Richard Sackey, while urging all selected businesses to cooperate fully with the field officers, assured them of the protection of their confidentiality.
“We have our act, which is Act 2019 (Act 1003), which talks about confidentiality. It empowers us to enter any establishment to intervene or to elicit for data. And for us as workers, the law also mandates us to keep whichever data we get from any individual or any institution for that matter confidential”.
