The Director of Business Banking at Absa Bank Ghana, Grace Anim-Yeboah, has urged entrepreneurs who intend to secure credit facilities to start or expand their businesses to build capacity first.
Speaking on the theme, ‘Doing business in Ghana as an MSME‘ on Citi TV, as part of this year’s virtual fora of the Citi Business Festival, Madam Anim-Yeboah explained that though most MSMEs view access to credit as their biggest challenge, the actual challenge they need to tackle is capacity building.
She explained that businesses that build capacity do not struggle to attract credit facilities.
“Credit is indeed available, and for the MSMEs, their requests are not usually very high that the banks cannot support. But most MSMEs say their biggest challenge is access to credit, but per our observation, that is not the actual challenge. One of the challenges we have found because we are intentional about bringing possibilities to life is the capacity gap.”
“How are these entrepreneurs thinking of growing their businesses beyond themselves? What is the plan? To what extent are they opening up their businesses to other participants, so that the founder is not Alpha and Omega of the business, but the business is resilient, has the right structures, and can run as a legal entity? All these factors come to play when it comes to making MSMEs more attractive to banks in terms of making lending decisions.”
Other speakers for the week two discussion were Yofi Grant; the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GIPC, Dr. Abdallah Ali Nakyea; Senior Lecturer of the University of Ghana Law School, Jemima Oware; the Registrar General, who joined the discussion via zoom alongside Professor Alex Dodoo, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana Standards Authority.
The Citi Business Festival is an extensive program of business events and on-air activities providing inspiration, business ideas, and information to persons who are starting, building, or growing their businesses.
The virtual business fora are live on Citi TV every Tuesday from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm. The radio on-air series is themed to correspond with the various virtual forums at 9:20 am every weekday.
The Citi Business Festival is sponsored by Absa Bank Ghana with support from IT Consortium and the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC).
It is also powered by Citi FM, Citi TV, and Ghana’s most comprehensive business news website, www.citibusinessnews.com.
Edna Agnes Boakye / citinewsroom.com