Chief Executive Officer for the Ghana Chamber of Young Entrepreneurs (GCYE), Sherif Ghali, has revealed that the startup bill intended to help SMEs in the country has been subjected to economic and political risk analysis.
According to him, despite the delay in the passage of the bill, stakeholders involved in the process have done their best to ensure it is passed. He indicated that the “enablers” of the bill are engaging the ministry of communication and digitisation, who will then “take it up to our sponsor ministry so that it can be sent to cabinet through to parliament for passage into what we call an Act”.
“For us as ecosystem enablers and coming together somewhere two years ago to help in the drafting process of the bill, we can literally say we’ve done our work. We have been able to consult all stakeholders that are supposed to be consulted [and] we’ve been able to draft a bill. The bill has been subjected to economic and political risk analysis and that has been done.”
Sherif Ghali
Mr Ghali stated that the enablers have played their part by visiting every region and organising stakeholder engagements to expedite the passage of the bill.
“… It went through six or seven reviews. We have one that has gone through the economic analysis and we are happy to say that we are ready to present it to the ministry of communication for onward presentation.”
Sherif Ghali
Supporting startups in Ghana
Commenting on the urgent request of SMEs from government, Mr Ghali highlighted that the demands of businesses in the country must be met by government to ensure they thrive. He expressed that government must create a conducive environment for the youth to venture into entrepreneurship.
“We all know what SMEs are asking from government day in and day out. We are basically looking for three things as SMEs. Number one is access to market. How can government support SMEs to have that market so that whatever we are producing, we are able to have market for it…
“The second thing is that how can we have support so we can scale up? The reason is that most of these SMEs do not get the needed financial support they want so that they can scale up. So, at every point in time, Ghanaian SMEs are still doing the brick-and-mortar businesses.”
Sherif Ghali
The CEO of the Ghana Chamber for Young Entrepreneurs emphasized that scaling up is crucial for SMEs and they can only employ once they receive necessary support from government. He explained that some of these SMEs’ revenue is nothing to write home about, hence their inability to expand.
“So, how can these people grow with this meagre revenue if government is not deliberate enough about supporting or pushing some financial support to them. Least talked about is the financial institutions; they don’t want to even listen to the Ghanaian micro and small enterprises because they are too risky”.
Sherif Ghali
Mr Ghali indicated that building capacity is an equally fundamental aspect for entrepreneurs. He noted that these SMEs are asking government to put in structures such as incubation programs that can support young entrepreneurs and all SMEs.
