Don't pressurize MPs for financial support - Entrepreneurs Advised

Winneba (C/R), April 2, GNA - Mr. Kingsley Arkoh-Sam, Managing Director of the Winneba-based International Labour Organisation (ILO's) Edwumapa Co-operative Credit Union (ECCU), has advised small-scale entrepreneurs in the country not to pressurize parliamentarians in their areas of operation for financial assistance to support their businesses. He explained that Members of Parliament can only recommend groups of small-scale businessmen and women in their respective constituencies and districts to the various Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies and the various banking institutions for financial assistance after such groups had formed formidable co-operative associations or societies.

Mr Arkoh-Sam was speaking at a graduation ceremony organized by the leaders of the Winneba Municipal Office of the Ghana Tailors and Dressmakers Association (GTDMA), for 40 trained tailors and dressmakers, made up of 37 women and three men. He said that besides government and the banking institutions intervention, the best financial system small-scale entrepreneurs could conveniently use as their strong pillar for better and systematic economic advancement was the credit union.

He therefore counselled small-scale businessmen and women in the area to organize themselves into formidable co-operative credit unions for affordable credit facilities to run their businesses. Mr Arkoh-Sam said that the ILO-assisted Edwumapa Co-operative Credit Union did not require huge deposits of shares or savings to start with, adding that, prospective members could begin with a minimum of 20 Ghana cedis followed by regular monthly savings of five Ghana cedis for a period of six months to qualify for a loan. According to Mr Arkoh-Sam the union provides adequate counselling to clients of the scheme to ensure effective and efficient running of their economic ventures and orderly settlement of loans granted them. Mr Nii Ephraim, an Educationist who stood in for Mr Mike Allen Hammah, Minister of Transport and MP for Effutu, emphasized the government's determination to promote vocational and technical training programmes in the country to ensure that children who could not pursue higher academic programme acquired the requisite vocational and technical education to enable them to have decent lives. In a message, Mr Hammah affirmed his desire to give out his best to help better the socio-economic lives of the people, especially the youth, and charged parents in the area to encourage their children who have completed junior and senior secondary schools and were determined to pursue such training to do so.

Mr Kwesi Agyeman Essel, Chairman of the Winneba area branch of the Ghana National Tailors and Dressmakers Association, advised the young graduates to cultivate the spirit of hard work and perseverance to enable them to accomplish their dreams and vision. They should always give their clients due respect and honour because without them the purpose for which they acquired the knowledge and skills in the tailoring and dressmaking business would be meaningless. Mr Agyeman Essel charged members of the association who have established their own training centres to maintain the high professional standards they have set, to promote the image of the association. Dr Oheneba Akyeampong, a Senior Lecturer at the University of Cape Coast, who presided over the function reminded the graduates of the numerous socio-economic challenges confronting society and advised them to strive to lead decent and acceptable lifestyles worthy of emulation. 02 April 09