GROOMED ENTREPRENEURS NEED START-UP FUND (PAGE 29)

A retired statistician, Mr John Amankrah, has advocated the establishment of a fund for the National Service Secretariat and EMPRETEC Ghana to continue training graduates under the Graduate Enterprise Development Programme (GEDP).
He said after the successful implementation of the pilot phase of the programme it became imperative to address the problem of the absence of start-up capital for the graduates in their efforts to set up and manage their own businesses.
He advised graduates to take their training seriously as the key factors to solving unemployment was to ensure that they equipped themselves with the necessary skills in order to stand on their own.
Mr Amankrah made the call at the end of the 2007/2008 GEDP for 26 personnel from the Western and Central regions.
He said equipping the graduates with the needed skills was very important.
“It is also comforting to note that 100 graduates out of the 500 selected countrywide are now ready for follow-up support in the pilot phase by EMPRETEC to monitor and counsel them in the development of business of their choice and manage them,” he said.
He said the next phase would train about 2,000 personnel and 500 would be selected for the follow-up phase.
The number of graduate trainees, he said, was expected to increase in the third year of the programme.
He said the purpose of the programme was to equip serving personnel with entrepreneurial skills and follow-up support to enable them to set up their own enterprises after completing their services.
“Even the environments that the personnel are posted to are full of rich experiences that can best help them to manage their own business, ” he said
The retired statistician said notwithstanding the fact that the small and medium enterprises sector contributed greatly to the national economic growth they lacked access to long-term funds.
He stressed the need to establish a well-structured fund for them to access to start their businesses under the graduate entrepreneur training programme. “This has the potential of creating jobs and wealth to accelerate the growth of the economy into a middle-income status.”
Mr Amankrah expressed worry that an educated mind could be left to go waste because there was no immediate sector to engage them after their training.
He said the country’s graduates were so creative that it was good to appreciate their training by supporting them to enter private ventures.
“Recognising the fact that an educated mind should not be wasted, the management board of the scheme instituted the programme in collaboration with EMPRETEC Ghana as a tool for addressing one of the critical development challenges facing the board, which is securing gainful employment opportunities for personnel after completing their service,” he said.
The Chief Executive Officer of EMPRETEC, Nana Tweneboah-Boateng, said funding would be available for those who would need it provided they were prepared to repay the loans within the specified period.
He said the national service secretariat engaged EMPRETEC to help the participants develop good business plans that would be viable in the future.
The Chairman of the National Service Scheme board, Professor Kwasi Agyeman, urged the participants to take advantage of the training to surmount unexpected challenges.