Business News of Saturday, 20 January 2018
Source: citifmonline.com
2018-01-20
John Kumah, CEO of NEIP
The National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Plan [NEIP], says it will create about five thousand direct jobs from its industrialization project this year.
According to the Chief Executive of the Plan, John Kumah, the NEIP will commission 29 factories in February as part of the government’s flagship one-district, one-factory programme.
“We are supposed to help create industrial subcontracting arrangements for young people who want to do business and succeed. We have designed a programme we call the NEIP industrialization project and that will feed into the one-district, one-factory agenda of government. At the moment, we are about to commission about 29 factories, in partnership with Exim Bank Ghana and the Venture Capital Fund. We have very critical businesses and factories lined up,” he said on Eyewitness News on Friday.
“By February, we are doing this in partnership with some Indian partners Exim and Venture Capital. What we are doing is to establish these factories and get private young people that we are training.”
John Kumah noted that, the NEIP had received applications from over 7, 000 startups for financial and technical support from the government.
He stated that some of those businesses which aren’t approved for support from the Plan, but who align with the factories could be engaged to run the factories with the view of taking over fully in the next five years.
“Those who won’t even receive funding in the 7, 000 applications, some of them whose businesses fall in line with these factories, can be engaged to become the owners. So you run to pay back those investments into Exim Bank or the Venture Capital Fund and then you become the eventual owners of those factories after five to seven years,” he said.
‘20, 000 indirect jobs’
The project, which is being funded by the Exim Bank and the Venture Capital Fund is being undertaken in collaboration with India who are responsible for the construction of the factories.
John Kumah also indicated that, aside from the 5, 000 jobs that would be created directly from the commissioning of these factories, over 20, 000 people were expected to be employed indirectly as well.
“We are hoping to create about 5, 000 jobs out of these 29 factories. The Indians are helping to build and bring the machinery. Exim Bank, Venture Capital Fund and NEIP will be paying for it, and then the private young businesses that we are bringing up, will run it, pay for it and become eventual owners,” he said.
“That will also help create a number of jobs. We can create about 20, 000 indirect jobs from the NEIP Industrialization project alone. All this is this year, 2018.”
NEIP gets funding boost
The NEIP received a major boost last July when President Nana Akufo-Addo announced that government has set up a 100 million dollar package to fund the plan.
Outlining four main challenges to be solved by the NEIP, the president stated at the time that “the overall objective of this plan is to stimulate private sector growth to accelerate job creation and to provide entrepreneurial Ghanaian youth with a critical alternative to salaried appointment.”