Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Enterprises Agency (GEA), Mrs Kosi Yankey Ayeh, has disclosed that there is the need for her agency to be ambitious to achieve government’s aim of creating one million jobs in three years under the YouStart program.

According to her, President Akufo-Addo made a major “policy statement” when he sought to create one million jobs and reckons that is one of the best things that he could ever say and was “bold” about. Mrs Yankey-Ayeh explained that her outfit in the past year have always sought to do things “bolder” and one of the things that drives her agency to do this is because the country has one of the greatest assets in the world which is “our youth”.

“You have to put them at the heart of everything you’re doing and that is in the budget… I think that the system has always been ready. I think government’s vision has driven us to this point and if you look at the President’s vision and where he wants to lead the country to and what he wants and expects from the youth, it has been work in progress. You can say that the transformation of the GEA is one of the drivers and the factors leading to supporting a stronger youth entrepreneurship ecosystem… One million is ambitious but we have to be ambitious”.
Mrs Kosi Yankey-Ayeh

Captured in the 2022 budget read by finance minister, Ken Ofori Atta, GEA is one of the implementing agencies of the YouStart program along with NEIP and other private financial institutions. Commenting on the implementation of the program, Mrs Yankey-Ayeh insisted that the Agency’s mandate really allows them to be able to implement the program.

“If you look at the work we do, one of the questions you ask is, are we ready? Yes, we are. If you look at the set of GEA we have 190 district offices, we have 37 business resource centres [and] we are in every region in this nation. This YouStart program is not going to focus on two regions and districts. It’s a nationwide program… To be able to implement a program like that, you need an engine [and] an institution that has the reach like we do to be able to get to the ground to get the work done”.
Mrs Kosi Yankey-Ayeh

The focus of GEA, Mrs Yankey-Ayeh emphasized, is to create jobs, opportunities, businesses and to sustain them with all of that translating and leading to job creation.

She noted that, although her outfit has near perfect picture of how to address the teeming “12% unemployment rate” amongst the youth, the success of the program requires the youth to drive the economy.

“We need them to also facilitate, harness and create that opportunity for their friends…”
Mrs Kosi Yankey-Ayeh

The GEA boss indicated that prior to the YouStart, there has been a lot of work undertaken by the agency. She explained that government has through the President’s vision of supporting the economy and using private sector as the focus done much for the youth as there have been some support in that regard.

Mrs Yankey-Ayeh intimated that one of the things that is constant is not only “access” to finance as there is the need for access to market as well.

“If you have access to market and you’re selling your product, then you’ll have funding to inject into your business. You might not need to go back to the bank or a financial institution. So, there’s the need for access to market channels. There’s the need for yes, access to finance is good, but what quality access to financing? You’re looking at it also from institutional aspect in terms of also the technical assistance…”
Mrs Kosi Yankey-Ayeh