Participants in the fourth edition of the GRAPHIC BUSINESS –Fidelity Bank Breakfast Meeting in Accra identified the need for entrepreneurs to transform their mindset in order to excel in their enterprise.
Some proposed that to be able to develop the country, it was fundamental to develop an environment that allowed everybody to be confident that the system would protect them and their investments.
The participants said it was important to develop a situation in which entrepreneurs could see themselves beyond the present into the future.
The President of the Association of Ghanaian Industries (AGI), Mr James Asare-Adjei, said government could only support entrepreneurs when it knew their needs.
He added that the country kept on hammering the same problems from one platform to the other but then not much effort was being made to address them.
“The issue of made in Ghana campaign, yes we are trying to do something and we wish that we wear Ghanaian clothing always, but the question is, whether these institutions set up to ensure that these laudable ideas or policies come through are themselves made to do what is expected of them.
“I believe strongly that at this point in time in our development dispensation, government should really look at what I call a bigger stimulus package to ensure that businesses, especially industries, can stay at home,” he said.
“So the beginning is not only regulation but also attitudinal change by the entrepreneurs themselves. It is important to look at the attitude of the Ghanaian investor or the growing entrepreneur. Many businesses lose out because it is always a one-man show so they die with the business or when they are sick the business cannot go on,” Mr Rashid Pelpuo, Minister of Private Sector Development and Public Partnership, stated.
He said it was important that entrepreneurs adopted an attitude to regulate how they spent the proceeds of their investments and be able to increase their investments at all times.
Entrepreneurs frustrated
The erratic power supply situation in the country is adversely affecting businesses and entrepreneurs at the forum did not mince words in expressing their frustrations.
According to some of them, they were not able to operate at full capacity although there was demand and the country had to import goods every year.
“We import US$17 billion worth of goods and we export between US$13 and US$14 billion ranging from match sticks to secondhand under wears whereas our local manufacturers have the capacity to produce,” a participant said.
Another participant said, “it is about time government takes the bull by the horn and ban certain kind of imports.”
GIPC promoting entrepreneurship
Some participants sought to find out the specific interventions that Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) was putting in place to attract foreign investments to entrepreneurs as there was the wrong perception that the GIPC focused only on Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs).
In response, the CEO of GIPC, Mrs Mawuena Trebarh said: “Our attention has been drawn to the need to ensure that all services that are offered to international investors are also available to the local investor. We therefore organise regional sensitisation tours to engage with the Ghanaian business community to identify innovative services and products being rolled out for them.”
“There is no point to invite investors from outside of Ghana to engage the Ghanaian business community if they are not on the same level. If they have not built their capacity internally they will not know the appropriate structure that allows the right source of partnerships and collaboration,” she further explained.