GEA targets 68 SMEs in second phase of economic transformation project
Sixty eighty (68) small medium enterprises are to benefit from a maximum of GHS 300,000 to a minimum of Ghs20,000 grant under the second phase of the World Bank Ghana Economic Transformation Project, the CEO of the Ghana Enterprises Agency (GEA), Kosi Yankey-Ayeh has announced.
The grant is to provide liquidity and support to enable SMEs to adjust and grow out of the Covid-19 crisis in selected sectors of the economy.
“For today, GHS 8m has been done, in the past over GHS 30m was disbursed in the first phase, under the CAPBusiness Support over GHS 500m has also been disbursed to support Ghanaian SMEs.
In this second phase we are going to give close to GHS 40m and in the next phases, there are going to be about three different stages of it that would be more, then we roll out the other phases. Today 68 people would benefit, it is rolling application, so we will continuously do due diligence, it ongoing, so people should be patient with us, as we roll the process.
“For us, it is a minimum of 20,000 and a maximum of 300,000 for beneficiaries,” she said.
The programme under the Ghana Economic Transformation Project will have a strong focus on Ghanaian export-oriented firms, female-owned enterprises, companies owned by persons with disability and youth enterprises.
Speaking at the Grant Agreement Signing and Orientation Ceremony in Accra on Thursday, she said “how best we can provide support to SMEs in Ghana on the umbrella of the Covid Response Grant under the Ghana Economic Transformation Project.
After the pandemic we still dealing with the ramifications, inflation, oil or gas prices going up and to be able to address and support our SMEs in Ghana, we have come up with a lot of initiatives, for us this is the second phase to provide funding of relief to some of these SMEs, today we looking at the first 68 because we looking at the SME, we giving in excess of GHS 8m to support and build them as we await to provide more support in the future.
This is just the beginning, next week we will go back to the grant committee for more application, it is a rolling process and we do the next batch until we have been able to utilize the funding.”
Further she disclosed that for this year, they are looking at other sectors including education, healthcare and tourism.
“So in the past we didn’t have education, healthcare or tourism in the mix of sectors that we support, this time we have been able to add them, the reason being that we underestimated the impact on these sectors and so it important for us to continuously provide them with support and also looking at it, these are sectors a lot of entrepreneurs play a lot of role, considering that in the past we have been looking at having equity of both women and men in providing access to funding, so we will be paying close attention to all these parameters on what we would be providing them with.
So, this year, we are working on another one which is the High Growth funding, it is a technical assistance which means we will bring on board, consultants and programmes that will build the business, fundamentals of the business, those that are successful through this round and those who show promise or potential we will support them or access funds for them through their businesses. These are some of the interventions that government is leading.”
A Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Michael Okyere Baafi lauded the efforts from GEA to support businesses, stating that it was the way to go, he however bemoaned the current situation of the Ghana Union and Traders Association (GUTA) where most of its members have closed stops in protest of high taxes and doing business.
He disclosed that government has made some concessions with GUTA in a bid to salvage the situation.
“Government has made a lot of concessions, at least one of them being the suspension of the invigilation being conducted by the Ghana Revenue Authority, that is enormous -government was going to raise a lot of revenue from that exercise but GUTA says they don’t want it. We engage whiles we still do business, that is the way to go.
The way to go now is for these people to come together and set up businesses in Ghana to manufacture all those things that they import to Ghana, that will help the country to grow and overcome challenges we are going through now.”
