‘Most entrepreneurs abandoned their businesses’

Most entrepreneurs assisted by the Business Advisory Centre (BAC) have abandoned their main business and opted for others, Madam Ophelia Amponsah Tabi, Head of BAC at Nkoranza, has said. She said they abandoned their businesses because they did not set their priorities right.

Madam Tabi was addressing a stakeholders’ forum jointly organised by the National Board for Small Scale Industries (NBSSI) and BAC for some entrepreneurs and workers from Nkoranza South Municipal and Nkoranza North District at Nkoranza.

It was on the state of the businesses of the participants and the challenges facing them to enable NBSSI and BAC initiate strategies to cushion them to undertake their business activities.

Madam Tabi said the growth of every business depended on the quality of the services and production and stressed the need for the participants to add value to their activities for improvement.

She said the Rural Enterprises Programme (REP), with funding from some donor agencies, would embark on capacity building training courses and workshops for BAC clients to enable them improve upon their activities.

Ms Vanessa Asomea-Takyi, Head of BAC at Duayaw-Nkwanta in the Tano North District, said there was the need for the unemployed youth to undertake income-generating activities.

She said it was unfortunate that some of the youth complained of lack of employment whilst they could earn a living by engaging in business activities such as gari-processing, bakery, soap-making, edible oil extraction to earn some income since such products had ready market.

Ms Asomea-Takyi said REP had plans to build sustainable business activities for entrepreneurs to create job opportunities for the unemployed youth.

She called on stakeholders and the participants to organise themselves into formidable groups to enable them benefit from credit facilities from financial institutions to expand their businesses.

Mr Ebenezer Amoah, Nkoranza South Municipal Development Planning Officer, said the assembly had decided to establish a factory to process water-melon and mango mostly produced in the area as well as poultry feed and maize flour.

He said the factory would encourage farmers to go into large scale production of these crops because most of the farmers who produced them faced huge post-harvest losses.