Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Enterprises Agency, Kosi Yankey-Ayeh, has disclosed that the Agency will be decentralized to support businesses in the country.

According to her, SMEs should be excited about the new move by government to make the Agency an autonomous one. This, she explained, is because they are in almost every “district in this nation”.

“I think people should be excited about it because it shows that we’ve put our work in what we had done in the past. We look at the micro, small and medium enterprises… But now it has also broadened our scope as to how to do what we have to do. If you take the CAPs business support we had done in the past, we did something unprecedented. We never used to work with traders and that’s a huge segment of our economy.

“We believe it’s a huge segment that can also transform into industrialization or move into the manufacturing sector and we can place more emphasis on providing them with support”.

Advisory centres for business support

Mrs. Yankey-Ayehfurther revealed that, some advisory centres will be opened to address the concerns posed by businesses. The GEA boss believes the new face of the Agency also provides them with the requisite funding to expand businesses.

“They should be excited because our work is going to more decentralized. So, we will be one of the most decentralized government agencies that provides business support. As we speak, we have 190 business advisory centres and 37 business resource centres, we are expanding and enhancing the scope of work.

“Now, they can walk into any of these advisory centres and ask to get support from regulatory support. In some instances, we have discounted programs and products for them to go to the Food and Drugs Authority to get their certification”.

Mrs. Yankey-Ayeh further maintained that the new Agency makes her outfit more relevant and stronger. Furthermore, it provides them with an opportunity to “pool in a lot more resources to support the sector”.

“So now, we have raw access to funding support, we have more enhanced business development support more than we’ve ever had. We’ve become more efficient as an institution, so they should be excited about it”.

GEA’s focus incorporates medium enterprises

Additionally, Mrs. Kosi Yankey-Ayeh explained that the new face of the Agency will incorporate medium enterprises. This, she noted, was absent under the erstwhile NBSSI Act. She emphasized the need to implement policies to ascertain the plight of business in the country

“Initially, the NBSSI Acts focused on the micro and small enterprises and now, this new Act says now we do look at the micro, small and medium enterprises. Because if you look at things in the small component, it remains small forever, so how do you move that to grow the businesses and strengthen the economy.

“Also, one of the things that we’ve been able to do is come up with a policy… The policy is really important because through that policy document we are able to say this is what is affecting these businesses. To be able to do this, we need a different type of agency. So, the policy document led to the agency, that led to the design of the implementation”.

Touching on the direction of the Agency, she insisted that her outfit is undergoing an impact assessment. She believes the assessment will help decide whether funding will be the new route for the Agency.

“I don’t know if funding is not the way to go. I think it’s about what will work for the businesses for them to take off. We are doing an impact assessment to understand if it really benefited the people the way we wanted it to benefit them and if it’s really going to get them to move their businesses to the next level.

“It’s a system, so you do have to budget… Because the government and the President understand the importance of support micro, small and medium enterprises”.