66,000 small businesses to be created in 160 districts
The Trade and Industry Ministry is hoping to train more than 150,000 people in artisan vocations and various small and medium-scale enterprise (SME) activities, starting 2012.
The Rural Enterprises Programme, the vehicle to facilitate the training, is expected to create more than 66,000 small businesses in a minimum of 160 districts across the country where the programme will reach.
According to the Daily Graphic newspaper, the Minister of Trade and Industry, Ms Hanna Tetteh, said the programme is very important for the country’s private sector development initiative since the country is looking forward to the development of micro, small enterprises.
The programme which is part of the second Private Sector Development Project will not only attract large enterprises but will also have different levels of businesses providing different goods and services.
Training will be offered to people in micro business activities such as hairdressing, dressmaking, batik, tie and dye, welding, painting, spraying, electrical, fish farming, animal husbandry and agro-processing.
Under the first phase, 66 districts were covered under the programme with 55,000 artisans being trained, leading to the creation of 22,000 businesses in rural communities. The pilot project which started in 1996 with 13 districts was extended to 66 districts by the close of the year 2002. It is, however, expected that, the current programme which is expected to begin this year will reach a minimum of 160 districts, making it national in scope.
According to the Daily Graphic, the trade minister added that such a spread in implementing the programme also indicated that economic activities were going on in many and different areas in the economy.
The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has made available US$39 million to kick-start the US$170-million, eight-year programme which is expected to transform the rural economies by creating jobs and halting the rural-urban migration.
The partner sponsor, African Development Bank (AfDB), has also completed its mission and is expected to approve a financing package in the first quarter of next year.
Under the REP, the ministry would also set up Rural Technology Facilities (RTFs) meant for the manufacture and fabrication of simple tools and machine parts.
Already, such facilities have become operational in six additional Rural Technology Facilities (RTFs) in 2011 in Goaso, Bechem, Bole, Jomoro, Mankessim and Adidome, bringing the total number to 18.
It is expected that additional RTFs will be established in Somanya, Damongo and the Awutu-Senya in 2012. According to Ms Tetteh, the ultimate target is to have one RTF per every five districts.
In anticipation of a busy year, the 2012 Budget allocated about GH¢157.4 million to the Trade Ministry, GH¢10.68 million coming from the government, GH¢110 million from donor sources and GH¢23.73 million coming from internally generated sources.
A Business Advisory Services Unit will also be set up under the REP in all participating districts. The Unit will serve as a resource centre to support the SMEs and artisans with business knowledge, proper book keeping and management practices.
The REP in a district will be responsible basically for training master craftsmen who will in turn train apprentices after which the trainees who pass out would receive start up kits. Funding will be drawn from rural and community banks.
The Trade and Industry Minister believes that many of the small and simple equipment imported could be manufactured in Ghana and the RTF would serve as resource centres for these machines to be manufactured locally, to provide value addition to agricultural products.
“They have also become resource centres where we can develop industrial areas. This was the case in Mankessim, where a lot of the artisans on their own volition re-located near the RTF to have an all round services in the area,” she said, adding that “this is going to be the vehicle through which we will reach out to many districts and create SMEs to bolster the local economies.”
She said the amended Export Development and Investment Fund EDIF Act had made more resources available for agricultural and agro-processing activities to give real meaning to entrepreneurial activities at the district level.
However, the EDIF facility would not be for micro and small businesses, but medium scale enterprises.
“In the coming year, we are going to see an expansion in agro-business for the local economy as well as for export as a result of the EDIF Amendment Act,” Ms Tetteh stressed, as the amended Act now has a wider coverage and ropes in agricultural and agro processing, not necessarily for exports but also for the domestic market.
Accra, May 17, 2012
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