Kosi Yankey-Ayeh speaking to some journalists
MORE THAN seventy (70) small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) on Monday received funding totalling GH¢7 million from the Ghana Enterprises Agency (GEA) under its GHȼ145 million Ghana Economic Transformation Project (GETP) grant, to support their operational costs, the buying of raw materials and equipment.
The grants, which ranged between GHȼ10,000 and GHȼ20,000, marked the third tranche under the project.
About 373 SMEs, who are into agro-processing, food and beverages, health care and the manufacturing industry, selected across the country, have so far benefited from the GETP, the GEA said.
The SMEs were selected out of over 8,000 applicants who met the criteria set by the GEA, the World Bank and other partners.
Kosi Yankey-Ayeh, Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Enterprises Agency (GEA), addressing the beneficiary SMEs at an orientation and signing agreement ceremony at the African Regent Hotel in Accra, said the disbursement was the latest stimulus package introduced by the government to support micro, small and medium-scale enterprises (MSMEs) from the impact of the COVID-19.
She said “To be able to accelerate the growth of SMEs we need to ensure that they are able to have requisite support to be able to create employment and also strengthen and transform the economy,” adding that in the next few months, the GEA will launch the Technical Assistance and the High Growth SME fund as part of efforts to transform the economy and support more SMEs.
Commenting on beneficiaries of this package, Mrs Kosi Yankey-Ayeh emphasised, “We are looking at businesses with employees above 6 and that’s what we intend to do to go into those businesses and really help build them because, we need to build industry giants. And so, as much as possible, with that intervention, is also to create industry giants across various sectors, so they can also actually go out, create employment, improve the economy and move us to big things.”
“Over the past four years, we have increased access to finance from $600 to close to $160 million. For us to be able to do that, we need to support businesses that are showing transformation and changes,” adding “As I mentioned, Ghana is looking at pushing for the Ghana Economic Transformation Project to transform the economy and support more SMEs. This means that we are going to provide more support to SMEs to grow.”
BY Samuel Boadi