Entrepreneurship, key to reducing unemployment
Providing an enabling environment for entrepreneurship to thrive could help address the escalating issue of graduate unemployment in the country, the Special Advisor to the Minister of Business Development, Mrs Afua Asabea Asare has said.
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She said to this end, government through the Ministry of Business Development has taken initiatives to provide the requisite support and incentives needed to help people in the sector, especially the youth, to develop their businesses to create jobs and drive economic growth.
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Contributing to discussions at the 4th African SME Summit in Accra, Mrs Asare said there would be funding and training opportunities for the youth going forward, as part of efforts to reduce the unemployment numbers.
“The government has put in necessary measures to support entrepreneurs to help curb the issues of unemployment in the country,” she said
The Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) continues to be major contributor to employment in the country with available statistics from the Registrar Generals Department indicating that about 92 percent of companies registered in the country were SMEs.
An entrepreneur, Mrs Mary Brown, who did a presentation on funding options for SMEs said the influx of SME in Ghana should be able to address the issue of unemployment.
She said the SME sector was contributing to gross domestic product (GDP), positive enough to contribute to the economic development of the country.
Challenges
Mrs Brown said SMEs was facing a lot of challenges that sometimes scared people to venture into the sector.
Some of the challenges, she said, included lack of capital and knowledge, lack of suitable technology, lack of highly skilled labour at affordable cost, absence of adequate and timely bank financing ineffective strategies and inability to identify new opportunities.
While admitting the challenge of SMEs, she said the banks equally faced their own challenges with liquidity due to high defaulting rates of SMEs, making them hesitant in giving out credit to them.
“I have worked with banks and I know the challenges they go through and among them are history of high default rate, false information provided by people and insufficient data to mention but few’’. She pointed out.
Enumerating some of their challenges, some entrepreneurs at the summit complained of the stringent condition associated with getting start-up capital, difficulties in applying for loans, lack of awareness of factors financing institutions consider and their inaccessibility to banks and therefore called on government to support them in order to stay in business.
Banks becoming SME focused
Mrs Brown said despite the challenges encountered by banks in dealing with SMEs, most banks were adopting strategies to deal with the issue including the establishment of departments to deal exclusively with SMEs.
Some of the banks, she also explained had tailor made products to meet the needs of small businesses in the country as part of efforts to extend credit to the sector.