Business News of Wednesday, 14 August 2019
Source: citibusinessnews.com
2019-08-14
Minister for Business Development, Mohammed Ibrahim Awal
The Minister for Business Development, Mohammed Ibrahim Awal has revealed that his ministry has so far spent about GHC 100 Million as part of its many initiatives to build capacity of entrepreneurs across the country.
The Ministry has for the past two years implemented a number of initiatives including the Presidential Business Support, Green Business development, Capacity building for women and disabled entrepreneurs among others.
Addressing the media while taking his turn at the Meet the Press Series, Mr. Awal said government is ready to spend more money to build the capacity of young entrepreneurs in order to give them a competitive advantage in the Era of the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement.
“The monies spent so far, that is the GH¢100 Million, were used for capacity building and for funding. And we will be spending more to make sure our young people compete.”
The Minister went on to note that apart from monitoring to ensure effective development of the businesses under its initiatives, they were also making strides in retrieving the amounts given out as funds to young entrepreneurs, thereby ensuring that government’s investments are not lost.
“We’ve so far had 70 % recovery for the loans we’ve given out, that is for last years beneficiaries. Our target however is 90 %. We’re going to continue using internal and external monitoring and evaluation resources to ensure that we are doing the right thing.”
Entrepreneurs Trained So Far
The Minister for Business Development, Mohammed Ibrahim Awal told the gathering at the Meet the Press that so far they have managed train, 19,000 young entrepreneurs. Out of that number, 7 thousand were trained in 2018, while 12 thousand have so far been trained in 2019. Out of the trained number for 2018, 1,350 entrepreneurs have received funding from between GHC 10,000 to GH¢100,000.
The Ministry says it plans to increase its support to 3 thousand entrepreneurs for 2019 with funding at a rate of 10 percent.
