The Minister for Business Development, Ibrahim Mohammed Awal, has hinted that the Akufo-Addo-Bawumia government has made provision to support young women entrepreneurs with 10 million cedis.
Speaking to the media at the just ended Women Entrepreneurship Conference in Accra, Mr Awal indicated that most young entrepreneurs want support between 10, 000 cedis and 100, 000 cedis from the government.
He said because of this government "needs to find the modality so that every region will have entrepreneurs benefiting."
The Business Development Minister indicated further the 10 million cedis is not free money for the young women entrepreneurs but the interest rate is not something beyond 10%.
“The market rate is about 25% to 30%. The interest rate is not beyond 10%, it is 10% or below” he explained.
According to the minister, this is to support women entrepreneurs to set their businesses and also allow those in business to expand.
“Women are marginalized. If you go to the bank now, they ask for collateral, but most women do not have houses to show as collateral. So this money is to set them off” he added.
The minister noted that this is to create jobs for Ghanaians and if a young woman entrepreneur gets this money she can employ one or two people to expand.
“We want to purposely target women entrepreneurs because almost 52% of Ghanaians are women and we cannot have inclusive growth without women,” he said.
“Women are really struggling. If you look at the statistics, only 10% of women are engaged in the formal sector whilst most of them are in the informal sector. We, therefore, need to give them support” he stressed.
The Women Entrepreneurship Conference is held to recognize the contribution of women to the socioeconomic development of the country and to bring to the fore the contribution of Ghanaian women entrepreneurs in line with the vision of President Akufo-Addo.
The conference which was organised by the Ministry of Business Development was on the theme ‘Unleashing Women Entrepreneurship for Inclusive Growth’.
