The Private Sector Implementation Partner (PSIP) under the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme (NEIP) – a flagship programme for grooming entrepreneurs – has indicated its preparedness to list five thousand home grown businesses on the internet as part of the digitization of businesses across the country.
According to the PSIP, it will develop an eco-system that will create an environment for businesses to access finance and make their businesses known on the internet.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Africa SME organization and the PSIP, Yaw Amankwa, made this announcement when NEIP called for applications to access the tailor-made fund made available by the president for the support of young business-thirsty people in the country.
The businesses, when listed, will be codified for the study case of the academia to enable it find ways of offering assistance to these businesses, he said.
It will also offer backroom assistance for businesses needing help such as soft loans to expand as well as training programmes for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) across the country, he noted.
“Our business men and women should be happy they operate from Ghana, we should attract talents from overseas and make Ghana the hub for entrepreneurship and innovations on the continent,” he explained.
He says the call for applications from business people is a business plan competition opened to all existing Ghanaian businesses where winners will receive funds ranging from GHC100,000 and above to expand their businesses at prevailing Treasury bill rate.
It is our target to raise a counterpart fund of one hundred million dollars through grants, sponsorships and donations to create new opportunities for the Ghanaian youth.
CEO of NEIP, John Kumah, said government has the firm conviction that the only way out of the graduate unemployment situation in the country is through entrepreneurship.
According to him, entrepreneurship is capable of providing decent jobs and enable new businesses to emerge and grow in the supply chain.
The NEIP has a primary objective of providing an integrated, national support for start-ups and small businesses, focusing on the provision of business development services, business incubators, and funding for youth-owned businesses.
The NEIP was launched by the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo with a seed capital of USD10 million, which is expected to be scaled up to USD 100 million through the PSIP.
Kumah said: “NEIP exist not just to provide funding for businesses, but we are also the enabler for the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Ghana.
“We are currently positioning ourselves to bring all the various actors like funding organizations, Infrastructural support institutions, Incubators and Accelerators, government agencies, networks and international organizations to create the right enabling environment for start-ups and small businesses to thrive.”
