THE Eastern Regional Minister, Mr Samuel Ofosu Ampofo, has called on media practitioners to help promote the activities of small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs), in the country to enable them to become more vibrant and competitive.
This, he said, would spur such private entities on to expand and create more employment opportunities for the people.
“We can achieve this objective if the media consciously promotes the activities of the SMEs to enable them to effectively contribute to efforts at alleviating poverty among the people,” he stated.
Mr Ampofo made the call when executive members of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), the KAB Governance Consult and SMEs in the Eastern Region called on him at his office at Koforidua.
He said, “The media, as a powerful development tool, can help accelerate the socio-economic development of the region and country if they pay less attention to politics”.
The visit was to brief the regional minister on how the media could effectively be used to promote the activities of SMEs in all the 21 districts and municipalities in the region, and also seek his support and that of the Eastern Regional Co-ordinating Council (RCC), districts and municipalities in facilitating the growth of the SMEs in the region.
The delegates included Mr Bright Blewu, General Secretary of the GJA; Mr Edmund Quaynor, Eastern Regional Chairman of the GJA; Mr Kwesi Afriyie Badu, Chief Executive Officer of the KAB Governance Consult and some executive members of the SMEs.
The regional minister noted that one of the major challenges facing the socio-economic development of the region and the country as a whole was poverty, a problem he attributed to lack of employment among the people.
He, therefore, stressed the need for the media to shift focus from politics and promote the activities of the SMEs to enable them to grow and provide employment for the people.
“The global recognition of the media as a development tool should encourage media practitioners to give priority to promoting the interests of SMEs as their contribution to the alleviation of poverty, and not for politics and criticisms,” he stated.
According to him, for media practitioners to effectively promote the interest of SMEs, they must acquire the requisite knowledge in business and financial reporting to enable them to effectively contribute to efforts at addressing the challenges facing the SMEs.
He pledged the support of municipal and district assemblies to the development of the SMEs in the region.
He said 20 years after the introduction of the decentralisation process, there was the need for district assemblies to also be business-oriented to enable them not to relysolely on their common funds for the implementation of development projects.
He also indicated that some of the poverty alleviation programmes, especially the National Youth Employment Programme, which were introduced under the previous government, was taking a chunk of the district assemblies’ common fund.
He, therefore, stressed the need for such funds to be invested in profit-making ventures, including the SMEs.
“Since 70 per cent of the population in the region are engaged in agriculture, supporting the youth to go into farming can immensely address poverty among the people”, he stated, adding that he was working with two municipal assemblies to equip 210 girls with vocational skills to enable them to become self-employed to provide employment for others girls.
The regional minister called on MMDAs to collaborate with the various SMEs to facilitate the socio-economic development of their districts.
On the lack of a permanent market for beads traders at Koforidua, he pledged his preparedness to help in relocating the traders from their present location at the Jackson Park to a more decent and spacious place, where they could carry out their trade.
“I am collaborating with the New Juaben Municipal Assembly to accomplish this goal, “he said.
For his part, Mr Afriyie Badu said surveys carried out across MMDAs in the country revealed that most of the SMEs had no support from the district assemblies, a situation that had hindered their growth and development.
He, therefore, stressed the need for district assemblies to include SMEs in their decision-making process with regard to business activities in the region.
“District assemblies must also award contracts to the SMEs instead of giving them out to big business entities, ” Mr Afriyie Badu said.
Mr Blewu pledged the commitment of the media to extend the coverage to the activities of SMEs to enable them to overcome the inherent challenges facing the enterprises.
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