As government prepares to present its 2022 Budget Statement and Economic Policy to Parliament on November 17, 2021, Minister for Information Mr Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has been taking inputs from young entrepreneurs on how government can deepen its entrepreneurial interventions.
Youth entrepreneurship has become topical in recent weeks following public discussions about how more young Ghanaians can be supported to succeed in private businesses.
Mr. Oppong Nkrumah in a recent a live virtual conversation, dubbed “#ListenUP” took feedback from young entrepreneurs on how the entrepreneurial ecosystem is functioning.
The feedback from the session will be channelled into government’s decision-making processes to inform its policy directions for the future.
Organized by the Ministry of Information, the live audio conversation on social networking site, Twitter is an occasional platform for deepening engagements with the Ghanaian people and at the same time taking feedback that will aid government to better roll out its policies.
Mr Oppong Nkrumah was joined by nearly 2,000 young entrepreneurs who freely shared their feedback and suggestions for improvement.
NDC Deputy Youth Organiser
The Deputy National Youth Organizer of the NDC, Edem Agbana, who is also into farming suggested that one of the means government can support young entrepreneurs in the country is through the creation of a Start Up bank.
This bank, he noted, will make available funds to young entrepreneurs at low lending rates to enable them properly fund their businesses.
Mr Agbana bemoaned the lack of tax holidays targeted at young entrepreneurs.
He said a lot of companies that enjoy tax holidays in the country are companies that enjoy economies of scale stressing that compared to these companies, young startups must be supported with tax reliefs to make them competitive.
One participant who also joined the Space bemoaned the ease of business registration in the country, noting that young entrepreneurs face difficulties to get their business registered and often times get frustrated.
He said even though government has made frantic effort at digitizing the business registration process, he believes a lot can still be done to make it seamless.
Young entrepreneurs doing thing differently
Proffering solutions, participants agreed that already, government has created a foundation of which young entrepreneurs should take advantage of.
One of such foundation is the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
The participants were of the view that young entrepreneurs should take advantage of the free trade area and push their products into foreign markets to increase their profit margins.
One area they also suggested will improve young businesses a great deal, is investments in Research and Development (R & D).
According to them, this will enable young entrepreneurs to innovate and introduce new products and services to the market in order to rake in more revenue.
