'We need to create multinationals outside Ghana’ — BEIGE CEO
The Chief Executive Officer of Beige Capital, Mr Mike Nyinaku, has observed that it will take almost forever for Ghana to build its own multinational companies (MNCs) if indigenous entrepreneurship and business growth continues at the rate it is going currently.
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This is because the people and institutions that can help the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to blossom into MNCs knowingly or unknowingly wait for it to happen by natural occurrence, Mr Nyinaku said at this year's Ghana Economic Forum (GEF) in Accra.
“As they always would say, the private sector is the engine of growth and as for us we just create the enabling environment for the private sector to thrive and our work is done. So, the businessmen must move. No, Sir! You are wrong,” Mr Nyinaku said at the forum.
“It is normal to expect most of the MSMEs in any country to be owned and run by natives but there is also an emerging trend where natives are beginning to own respectable shares in MNCs operating in their respective countries,” he said, and noted that such a viable feat was yet to be achieved in Ghana.
He added that it was a shame that 60 years after attaining independence, Ghana could not boast even 10 MNCs that are properly owned by indigenes and operating very well outside the shores of the country.
"By this, I am not talking about companies owned by individuals who may have some skeletal branches outside Ghana. I mean companies that have been listed on the stock exchange, have employed massive numbers and have been able to extend their dominion across our borders. That’s what I’m talking about,” he said.
Aim higher
Mr Nyinaku explained that by creating the environment, as had been the mantra of governments for decades, small companies such as the BEIGE Group would thrive and find their level and provide livelihoods and economic opportunities to a few thousands of individuals. “Unfortunately, however, the story ends there,” he stated.
He added, “You do not have to expect BEIGE Capital to organically grow into becoming Ecobank just like that. It does not happen. A company such as Ecobank was created by forces of greater influence. Same can be said for others such as Dangote, GLO, UBA and the like.”
For Ghana to also boast of the like of MNCs, the CEO of BEIGE Group said there needed to be "a willingness on the part of the government, the force that has influence over the system and could make things happen, and also a willingness on the part of owners of the vessel that has potential to be exploded."
Impacting lives
Using global examples to explain the need for MNCs in Ghana, the CEO said statistics currently showed that Toyota employed about 350,000 people worldwide. Of this number, about 72,000 lived in Japan. The company also has a total of over 5,000 direct suppliers.
It is, however, estimated that Toyota’s indirect suppliers exceeded 50,000. This group of persons – their direct staff, direct and indirect suppliers, also have their own network of distributors and suppliers whom they deal with at several levels.
“They all buy food, drinks, go to church, buy clothes, patronise hotels, buy cars, fuel and the list goes on. When you work the math, about 20 million people, representing almost 16 per cent of the population of Japan, have their livelihoods connected to the existence of Toyota,” he noted.
He opined that the sheer numbers of lives that were impacted by such companies alone had turned them into micro–economies within their country’s larger economy.
Mr Nyinaku said because some of their suppliers were from outside their mother countries, the stakes were so high that it was in the interest of their local government, as well as external governments, to keep those institutions running, something he now wanted the Government of Ghana to help achieve.
