Why is it still a challenge for many young entrepreneurs?

Well, so it's a matter of two sides of the coin.

Now, so you have capital.

and the capital is waiting to ensure that, okay, you are ready enough to embrace or accept the capital.

So you may have money available, but the money is also looking at some indicators that it would want to see in you, in your business, so I can come freely to embrace you, have a handshake with you, then we do business.

And so there is also the demand side on the founder, on the entrepreneur, to ensure that, for instance, When you're coming up with a business idea, it must not be in a rush.

And there are certain fundamental indicators that you must meet.

So let's talk about how you're positioning yourself to support Ghana's economic recovery and job creation for that matter.

Mm.

And for which reason, the short-term instrumental facility you get from a traditional bank may not do the magic because it's like a child learning to grow.

You crawl, you fall, you crawl, you fall.

But you need a type of capital that will be patient enough to help you grow through the journey.

And so we've invested the funds.

Now we are doing some even within three years, we expect returns.

Some five years, we expect returns.

Mm.

So why still strike when government is willing to hear you?

So, yes, we've had some engagement.

But like we mentioned, the reason why we're striking is because those engagements, the outcome of those engagements have not appeared as though the government wants to listen.

And so after successive conversations, telling them that, look, because our demands are very simple, that we draw the public on AI because we have a series of complaints about it.

So we draw it.

Let us come back and have a conversation as stakeholders.

and fashion out a way that or fashion out methods of implementation if you so want to implement because of the government quantity but in a such a manner that does not affect the importer does not affect the trader negatively and governments also gains the required revenue that it wants to raise unfortunately that conversation has not been driven home from where we sit.

So why still strike when government is willing to hear you?

Hello, can you hear me? I can hear you loud and clear.

Okay.

Okay.

So yesterday at the instance of the Ministry of Finance and the General, yes, thank you very much.

Yesterday at the instance of the Finance Minister or the Ministry of Finance, we attended upon a meeting with the Deputy Minister of Finance, offices and then the Commissioner General.

At the meeting, we had four major requests, or four simple requests.

The first was that we wanted us to revert back to the status quo of the appeals before the introduction of the Yeah.

From your standpoint, what were the key concessions that influenced this strike being called off?

Why is it still a challenge for many young entrepreneurs?

Well, so it's a matter of two sides of the coin.

Now, so you have capital.

and the capital is waiting to ensure that, okay, you are ready enough to embrace or accept the capital.

So you may have money available, but the money is also looking at some indicators that it would want to see in you, in your business, so I can come freely to embrace you, have a handshake with you, then we do business.

And so there is also the demand side on the founder, on the entrepreneur, to ensure that, for instance, when you're coming up with a business idea, it must not be in a rush.

And there are certain fundamental indicators that you must meet.

So let's talk about how you're positioning yourself to support Ghana's economic recovery and job creation for that matter.

What would you say is the current state?

Well, I think it is important we begin from the basics, which is, first of all, the landscape of SME in Ghana.

Now, when you go to the Registrar General's Department, I believe, and this is data from the Ghana Statistical Service, out of the registered businesses we have in Ghana, about 90% or thereabout are SMEs, first of all.

So what that means is that Ghana's business landscape has over 90% being SMEs, small and micro businesses or medium businesses.

These SMEs equally also

contribute about 70% or thereabout to Ghana's GDP.

So what that means is that our domestic production as a country, the SMEs contribute over 70% of the total GDP of Ghana.

And then when you come to the very critical issue of employment, these same SMEs provide over 80% of Ghana's employment supply, of course, to the labor market.

So why still strike when government is willing to hear you?

So, yes, we've had some engagements.

But like we mentioned, the reason why we're striking is because those engagements, the outcome of those engagements have not appeared as though the government wants to listen.

And so after successive conversations, telling them that, look, because our demands are just as simple, that we draw the publican AI because we have a series of complaints about it.

So we draw it.

Let us come back and have a conversation as stakeholders.

and fashion out a way that or fashion out methods of implementation if you so want to implement because it is government quantity but in a such a manner that does not affect the importer does not affect the trader negatively and governments also gains the required revenue that it wants to raise unfortunately that conversation has not been driven home from where we sit.

So why still strike when government is willing to hear you?

Why is it still a challenge for many young entrepreneurs?

Well, so it's a matter of two sides of the coin.

Now, so you have capital.

and the capital is waiting to ensure that, okay, you are ready enough to embrace or accept the capital.

So you may have money available, but the money is also looking at some indicators that it would want to see in you, in your business, so I can come freely to embrace you, have a handshake with you, then we do business.

And so there is also the demand side on the founder, on the entrepreneur, to ensure that, for instance, When you're coming up with a business idea, it must not be in a rush.

And there are certain fundamental indicators that you must meet.

So let's talk about how you're positioning yourself to support Ghana's economic recovery and job creation for that matter.

So why is it still a challenge for many young entrepreneurs?

Well, so it's a matter of two sides of the coin.

Now, so you have capital.

and the capital is waiting to ensure that, okay, you are ready enough to embrace or accept the capital.

So you may have money available, but the money is also looking at some indicators that it would want to see in you, in your business, so I can come freely to embrace you, have a handshake with you, then we do business.

And so there is also the demand side on the founder, on the entrepreneur, to ensure that, for instance, when you're coming up with a business idea, it must not be in a rush.

And there are certain fundamental indicators that you must meet.

So let's talk about how you're positioning yourself to support Ghana's economic recovery and job creation for that matter.

Mm.

And one of the fundamental things has to do with having, for instance, your governance structure as a business right.

Most of the time, and the experience we've gathered from our investments thus far, is that you have situations where founders are unable to disconnect personal connections, personal experiences, personal demands and needs from business demands, business needs, or more specifically, personal financing from business financing.

So you end up beginning, for instance, a business, and the capital for the business may end up in, uh, addressing or attending to a personal need.

And then you come tomorrow, "I need capital." The capital is given to you, and yet you go in again, maybe funeral, a family member is dead, or your child's, uh, education, uh, scho- uh, school fees whatsoever, and the capital for the business, but that goes into personal needs.

So there's also that relationship of ensuring that if the capital is meant for business, it must be used for business.

Now, when you get the capital, how, for instance, you organize your financials, your financial statement, very key.

Mm-hmm

Do you think that, um, Ghanaian businesses can become globally competitive through local venture capital funding?

Yes.

I mean, why not? It's, it's, it's...

I, I always have the- Believe that nothing is impossible, really.

Nothing is impossible.

But one must always be strategic about how you engage.

I mean, businesses operate in different ways and forms.

Mm.

After all is said and done, what proposals are you giving on, you know, the building collapses and flooding in Accra? You'd have to unmute and make your point.

Okay.

In a summary, our greatest strength is our human resource.

We have professional engineers, thousands of them distributed all over the country.

What we will do is we will sit with the assemblies and agree on an arrangement where they can have access to qualified licensed engineers who can help them perform the role that the law has assigned them to do.

We see that their biggest challenge is that they do not have the professional human resources to carry out everything that the law says they should do.

And we are prepared to make that human resource available to them.

So what's the way forward? Do we need to get more engineers within these local assemblies?

I'd like to start with your initial reaction of the seeming tension between the agri-ministry and the finance ministry.

Good evening to your viewers.

First of all, I would say it's quite embarrassing for two ministries of the government to show such confusion.

They are supposed to work for the interests of Ghanaians, the Ministry of Finance, looking after the affairs of our finances, and the Food and Agriculture Ministry also to take care of our agricultural needs and, as a matter of fact, our farmers.

So for them to come out with such conflicting figures is so embarrassing, especially coming from the same government.

Most importantly, we have to look at the numbers closely.

So the Ministry of Finance is saying they've released about $1.67 billion to the Ministry of Agriculture for CAPEX and goods and services.

of the