GEA creates a financial services department to support MSMEs

Kosi Yankey-Ayeh, Executive Director of GEA

The Ghana Enterprise Agency (GEA) established the Department of Financial Services to develop strategies to address the challenges of accessing finance for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).

The aim is to position MSMEs so that they become key players in the government’s industrialization program.

Ms. Kosi Yankey-Ayeh, Executive Director of GEA, said the Agency should play a key role in helping MSMEs to become value chain actors in the industrialization process.

Ms. Yankey-Ayeh was speaking during the commissioning of the GEA Technical Committee on Access to Finance in Accra.

The committee is to provide inputs for the establishment and implementation of the MSME Fund, identify partner institutions to drive GEA’s access to finance initiatives, and provide inputs that will help expand GEA’s funding portfolio and reach. global.

They should also contribute to national policies relating to MSME access to finance and any other matter delegated to the Committee by the GEA.

The committee’s mandate, which will be in effect for one year, includes representatives from the Ministries of Trade and Industry and Finance, the Bankers Association, the Bank of Ghana, a Universal Bank and the ‘ARB Apex Bank.

Others are representatives of GHAMFI, an angel or impact investing community, GWES Network, ASSI and AGI and GEA

She said this therefore required strategic support to build the capacity and competitiveness of MSMEs with suppliers or partners, creating the necessary upstream and downstream linkages.

The Executive Director said that GEA 2000, Law 1043 which transformed the NBSSI, broadened the institution’s mandate as the supreme body for the MSME sector.

“One of the agency’s objectives is to facilitate MSMEs’ access to financial and non-financial resources, including credit facilities and professional services, machinery, equipment and raw materials from domestic sources and international, ”she said.

Ms. Yankey-Ayeh said that the National MSME and Entrepreneurship Policy, the Master Plan for the Growth and Development of the MSME Sector, proposes certain policy prescriptions to be implemented by the government to improve access to a reliable and affordable financing for MSMEs.

These include reorienting and encouraging financial institutions, export finance institutions and leasing companies to expand special lending windows for MSMEs; Help MSMEs access innovative long-term financial packages for their sustainable development and encourage angel finance and venture capital arrangements to inject capital into viable start-ups and MSMEs.

It is also about institutionalizing targeted financing under EXIM for export-oriented MSMEs, working with the private sector to set up concessional bank lending programs for entrepreneurship development. women and youth and build the capacity of MSMEs in the preparation of business plans, accounting and bookkeeping, and the use of computerized accounting software packages.

She said the GEA, by law, therefore needed to implement strategies to ensure the availability, accessibility and affordability of funding for existing start-ups and MSMEs, focusing in particular on the “missing medium”.

The Executive Director said the Agency was able to compile a financial directory of all financial institutions in Ghana, including the various products they offer to help bring in MSMEs.

Likewise, with the support of the MasterCard Foundation, we have developed more than 10 innovative and competitive financial products to help overcome financial barriers for MSMEs, ”she added.

She said last year it was a challenge for Ghana and the rest of the world due to the devastation and economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

She said the government was able to support many businesses if not intervention through the Coronavirus Mitigation Program (CAPBuSS) Business Support Program.