Business News of Wednesday, 12 June 2019
Source: Daniel Kaku
2019-06-12
Deputy Chief Executive Officer, GEPA, Mr. Albert Kassim Diwura giving a presentation
A Deputy Chief Executive Officer of The Ghana Export Promotion Authority (GEPA), Mr. Albert Kassim Diwura has urged export-oriented enterprises to identify the training needs of their employees that will enhance their productivity and seek for their support.
He made these remarks when addressing participants at a funding seminar organised by a joint collaboration between GEPA and SDF.
GEPA is collaborating with the Skill Development Fund (SDF) to provide up to GHc 400,000.00 for skills training and development of enterprises involved in export commodities.
The SDF is a fund established by the Government of Ghana with $14 Dollar funding support from DANIDA to facilitate skills training and development for business enterprises operating in both the formal and informal.
The Funding Seminar had about 100 Export-oriented organizations from the formal and informal sectors, business representatives/participants in attendance.
They were taking through the grant acquisition process of SDF.
In a speech read on behalf of the CEO, Ms Afua Asabea Asare by her Deputy Mr. Diwura, he indicated that GEPA in its operational mandate has identified that; “Beyond the perpetual challenge of finance as working capital for a lot of SME’s, possessing the necessary skills and business acumen to run an enterprise determines the future of the growth trajectory of your business. It is in line with this identified need that GEPA is collaborating with SDF to bring you this project which is aimed at providing you with the requisite funding/grants to help develop and upgrade the skills set of the employees in your organisations for increased productivity/output.”
“We are not losing sight of our resolved to reach $5.3 billion in export volume by 2021”, he added.
Grants Officer of SDF, Mr Sulemana N. Nelson took participants through the Grant Process and the scope of the grants. He explained that the SDF a challenge fund which is purposely meant for skills training and development of employees of beneficiary organisation.
Grants are classified under four main windows with various funding threshold.
Mr. Sulemana stated that “Formal sector organisations can source up to GHc 400,000.00, Training Innovation/ Tertiary Institutions can get up to GHc 500,000.00, Formal Sector Coaching for Management and Supervision have a threshold of GHc 100,000.00 and Informal Sector/Groups can get up to GHc 80,000.00.”
Mr. Dunwell Eku, Deputy Fund Manager of SDF affirmed the commitment of SDF towards this joint collaboration with GEPA to facilitate productivity and increase Ghana’s non-traditional export volume.
He, however, asserted that, in as much as their grant is opened to all indigenous Ghanaian enterprises, their priority sector is Agriculture, Agro Processing and Sustainable Energy.
Participants were highly enthused about the funding opportunity and were appreciative of the Ghana Export Promotion Authority for making it possible for them to enhance their human resource and technical capacity of their enterprises.
