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Mami Serwaa Amoakohene (inset), Innovation Creativity and Entrepreneurship Coordinator, Ghana Enterprises Agency, addressing participants
Mami Serwaa Amoakohene (inset), Innovation Creativity and Entrepreneurship Coordinator, Ghana Enterprises Agency, addressing participants

85% Of businesses have no record on transactions - Survey

Eighty-five per cent of businesses do not keep any record of transactions, while only 15 per cent of 12,611 enterprises identified had bank accounts to facilitate their business activities, a survey by the Ghana Enterprises Agency (GEA) has revealed.

The Coordinator of Innovation, Creativity and Entrepreneurship under the Master Card Foundation Young After Works Project of the GEA, Mami Serwaa Amoakohene, made this known at a workshop on entrepreneurial ecosystem of Ghana in Accra.

It was organised by the Ashesi University, a private non-profit university.

It was aimed at collaborating with both public and private universities, as well as development agencies to address graduate unemployment.

It also provided the participants a platform to share ideas and experiences.

Concerns

According to Ms Amoakohene, “it was realised that most of the businesses rather had mobile money accounts and not bank accounts which hinders their opportunity to engage in international business transactions, for instance".

She further explained that without adequate records, businesses were likely to miss opportunities and would not be able to keep track of their financial records which is a prerequisite for easy access to credit facilities.

“There are still large numbers of unregistered businesses, particularly micro-businesses.

This makes it very difficult to obtain credit facilities because banks are

unlikely to lend to such businesses that lack the necessary credentials,” Ms Amoakohene added.

She said poor bookkeeping records and the inability of some business owners to register their businesses had also affected many enterprises although the country’s entrepreneurship ecosystem and business environment was vibrant.

“A business must own an operating licence in order to even obtain Food and Drugs Authority clearance.

And without the FDA, it limits access to the market space,” the coordinator said.

As part of efforts to address the situation, she said the GEA had organised a series of financial literacy workshops and master classes for business owners.

participants

Graduate unemployment

The Associate Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Ashesi university, Prof. Gordon Adomdza, said there was “a huge graduate unemployment problem and a hiring freeze in the public sector” which made it imperative for the university to design a programme to support young people to start businesses.

“But it’s not that easy. It’s very difficult.

Parents, for instance, don’t understand how and why their kids would be at home saying they are entrepreneurs,” he said.

Prof. Adomdza said the university was partnering other institutions such as the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), the University for Development Studies (UDS), the University of Cape Coast (UCC) and the University of Mines and Technology (UMaT) to develop entrepreneurship hubs.

He said over the past three years, the university had been implementing the Ashesi Venture Incubator (AVI) programme to produce entrepreneurs, provide them with mentorship and psychological services and also inculcate in them traits such as resilience.

Prof. Adomdza said the first batch of 10 students were able to raise $ 500,000 within the period to promote their respective businesses.

He said the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme (NEIP) and the Ghana Tech Lab, a company that seeks to build technical startups and provide technology capacity for beneficiaries, had a similar programme which was being supported by the MasterCard Foundation.

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