A Former Rector of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), Prof. Stephen Adei, has called on the government to establish a special development bank that will support the development of small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs).
He said the SMEs development bank should be created with a seed capital of about US$100 million to ensure that all aspects of the growth of SMEs were covered.
Prof. Adei said SMEs were faced with exorbitant interest rates and charges from financial institutions which placed them in very disadvantaged positions in the domestic and international market.
He was speaking at the second SMEs Ghana Awards (SMEGA) organised in Accra last Wednesday evening to celebrate and recognise the achievements of SMEs in Ghana.
The awards night was on the theme: “Advancing SMEs through ICT applications.”
Improvement in SMEs
For Ghana’s economy to boom, he entreated the state actors to ensure an improvement in the overall national attitude and culture; the micro-economic environment and the removal of all that had a negative impact on national competitiveness in dealing with the constraints SMEs faced in the country.
Therefore, he urged the ministries to focus on developing activities of SMEs in their sectors as the Ministry of Trade and Industry was doing in promoting the activities of SMEs in Ghana, adding that “our economy’s survival is based on revamping the SMEs in the country”.
Prof. Adei explained that even though SMEs did not operate in the world of their own and, therefore, shared the same environment with other economic agents, the former faced the challenges of the consequences of the present economic conditions in Ghana.
“The SMEs are faced with difficulties in attracting the attention of policy makers, bankers as well as accessing functional expertise and business support, making them more vulnerable to the macro socio-economic conditions,” he noted.
Prof. Adei, therefore, called on policy makers to consider instituting a five-year tax holiday for SMEGA to allow them to build solid foundations for their businesses
Awardees
The Greater Accra Poultry Farmers Association (GPFA) emerged the overall winners of the night, while the High Impact Personality (HIP) award went to an entrepreneur and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Medium-Term Private Sector Development Strategy (PSDS II), Mr Joe Tackie, for the tremendous contribution he had provided to members in the field of mentoring, tutoring and consultancy services.
Other categories of awards included the Agricultural, Industrial and Services sectors.
In a speech read on his behalf, the Minister of Trade and Industry, Dr Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, urged members of SMEGA to continue their contribution to the country’s economy through national output, export and also by achieving diverse socio-economic objectives for employment and enhancing the entrepreneurship provided by the industries.
Source: Graphic