Anger at NBSSI as Trade Ministry privatizes Business Advisory Centers

There is currently an uneasy calm among staff of the National Board for Small Scale Industries (NBSSI) as reports suggest plans by the Ministry of Trade and Industries (MoTI) as part of a new policy directive is to privatize the operations of various Business Advisory Centers (BACs)/ Business Resource Centers (BRCs) built by Government of Ghana through the Rural Enterprises Programme (REP) and other partners under the auspices of the National Board for Small Scale Industries (NBSSI).

This has stoked up uneasiness among workers and since been agitating the ranks and file of the NBSSI staff and their local union members across the country.

According to credible sources available to MyNewsGh.com, there has been a written official confirmation of the new directive to workers through their local union body. What is not clear yet is how the new policy of privatizing the BACs/BRCs is expected to be rolled out in the coming days or weeks.

The source alleged that a director at the Rural Enterprises Programme (REP) with the Programme Coordinating and Management Unit (PCMU) in Kumasi (Name withheld) is in secret cohorts with one top politician at the Ministry of Trade and Industries with the intention of ceding the operations and management of the BACs/BRCs from NBSSI to their private companies to run in the various MMDAs.

Interestingly, the said Director at REP in Kumasi is believed to have been working with REP since 1995 to date. This director was further alleged to have been presiding over a questionable budget of US$200million approved for the implementation of REP’s phase (III) programmes. The long stay of the said director at REP, according to some workers wonder why an individual worker be allowed to stay at one particular place of work for more than two decades without transfer or being replaced by new one in order to rejuvenate the REP to bring about new ideas and innovation. Thus, the more reason why the said director is allegedly in cohort with other faceless private partners to rip-off the gains made over the years by the NBSSI in order to immortalize his/her selfish business interest on retirement.

Meanwhile, all this is happening at the back of the fact that Government of Ghana had secured an undisclosed amount of loan for the construction and upgrading of about 70 BACs. It is on record that 67 centers are being constructed to a standard fit for purpose Business Resource Centers (BRCs) in a number of MMDAs in Ghana.

The BACs/BRCs are simply office buildings that one can visit at the district level to obtain any information about SMEs and SMEs development. These buildings contain offices, showrooms and conference halls for the operations of all the NBSSI district agencies. In other words, BACs/BRCs are deemed to be the NBSSI district offices. The BRCs, therefore, are one-stop-shop for business development services at the districts.

The whole idea behind the construction of the BRCs under the auspices of NBSSI was to enable the agency to provide business incubation activities, business counselling and consulting as well as other technical business training for entrepreneurs at the grassroots levels across MMDAs in the country.

Mandate behind NBSSI Concept

The National Board for Small Scale Industries (NBSSI) as the name depicts is a statutory government agency under the Ministry of Trade and Industries (MoTI) which was established by an Act of parliament (Act 434 1981). The principal mandate of the agency was to amongst others facilitate the implementation of business development services for Ghanaians in a way that could help promote Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) development and growth so as to contribute significantly to reducing unemployment and support the country’s economic growth.

However, the NBSSI which has over the years been working closely with District Assemblies for the promotion of local businesses and MSMEs in the country after establishment since then eventually became one of local government decentralized agencies in a number of districts in Ghana.



NBSSI as implementing Agency for development partners

The NBSSI since its establishment as government agency, over the period had been working in collaboration with a number of development partners including the Rural Enterprises Programme (REP) to be able to implement business development services to promote rural enterprise development and business growth at the grassroots.

Consequently, it was through NBSSI partnership with DED (German Development Agency) that the idea to set-up Business Advisory Centers as the implementing arm for NBSSI in the delivery of its services came into being.

However, the NBSSI partnership with REP as an implementing agency of the Rural Enterprises Program was expected that the BACs/BRCs buildings be made to provide standard SMEs business development services in order for the NBSSI to be able to sustain the gains of various development partners it is working together with.

Meanwhile, it is noted that the NBSSI has been implementing the REP project since its inception in phases which included phase (I) from 1995-2002, phase (II) from 2003-2011 and phase (III) from 2012-2020 subject to renewal after 2020. The REP is being financed by a loan contracted by the government of Ghana from International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the African Development Bank (AfDB).

The obvious truth about the successes chalked by NBSSI throughout the years of its existence with the development partners in prosecuting its official mandate towards the development of MSMEs in Ghana however cannot be overemphasized.