COVID-19 is blessing in disguise– GEA CEO
Micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) are still resolute despite the devastating impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on the country’s economy, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana Enterprise Agency (GEA), Mrs Kosi Yankey-Ayeh, has said.
This, she said, was because the pandemic was a blessing in disguise for the country’s MSMEs sector, giving women and young entrepreneurs access to funding never seen before in history.
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Resolute MSMEs sector
Speaking at day two of the Ghana Economic Forum organised by the Business and Financial Times in collaboration with Mastercard Foundation in Accra, Mrs Yankey-Ayeh stated that the MSMEs sector was now resolute due to the stimulus package.
“It brought to light that women entrepreneurs were suffering from accessing funding, and so, when this programme came up and COVID-19 came in, for the first time in the history the government committed GH¢750 million.
“All of those funds were directed to the MSMEs to support their operations. It also allowed Young Africa Works under Mastercard Foundation to also give us more funding to give to the beneficiaries.
“It opened doors for women entrepreneurs, so that is a beautiful thing and I think we need to look at that,” she said.
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Breakdown
Giving a breakdown of how the MSMEs funds was disbursed, Mrs Yankey-Ayeh said 40 per cent of the people who applied for the funding were youth.
She stated that GEA has built a national database to provide up-to-date information on the operations and activities of MSMEs out of the applicants of the stimulus package.
So far, he said the details of 900,000 small businesses have been placed on the database as efforts were underway to capture more SMEs.
“Out of the 900,000 applicants the agency received, close to 70 per cent were women, requesting for 50 per cent of the value of the funds.
“That, tells you that a lot of the women's own businesses are micro, so how do we use this data and information to transform the businesses of these women to the next level?
“The beauty of this is that the data will allow us to strengthen more women in businesses,” she stated.
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CAP-BuSS
The Coronavirus Alleviation Programme Business Support Scheme (CAP-BuSS) is a special fund set up by the government last year to help cushion MSMEs from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It was established with seed capital of GH¢600 million and subsequently increased to GH¢750 million.
In all, more than 650,000 jobs in the micro small and medium enterprises space were protected by the special fund setup by the government to cushion small businesses from the effect of the COVID-19.
The jobs were protected through the disbursement of some GH¢502.5 million to about 289,047 small businesses that applied to benefit from the CAP-BuSS.
The beneficiaries have since invested their share of the fund in their respective businesses to help them get back on their feet as COVID-19 rages.