Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, had said that the GhanaCARES ‘OBAATAN PA’ programme is on track.
According to him, efforts toward promoting commercial agriculture, building technological capability, and advancing digitalisation under the GhanaCARES programme are on track.
Last year, the Finance Minister indicated that government is spearheading the Economic Enclaves Project (EEP) to establish ‘growth poles’ in key locations including Kasunya (Greater Accra), Kumawu (Ashanti) and Banda (Oti Region). The approach under the EEP is to provide agriculture infrastructure and land development support to our entrepreneurial youth and the formal private sector.
To enhance production and value-addition in the enclaves, Mr. Ofori-Atta said provision of ancillary services such as housing, training facilities, irrigation canals, farm roads, and electricity have also commenced.
“It is gratifying to note that the domestic private sector has responded positively to the provision of these services. About 10 medium and large-scale enterprises with experience in the commercial agriculture space have applied to play diverse roles, ranging from anchor farmers to machine and equipment services, in the EEP site in Kasunya”, he pointed out.
In partnership with the National Service Scheme, he said about 20,000 acres of land in Sekyere Kumawu in the Ashanti region, is being developed to accelerate maize, tomato, groundnuts and animal production.
He added that government expects that by end-2023, the EEP will have fully seeded 7,500-acres of rice, on-boarded qualified private sector entrepreneurs as anchor farmers, embarked on value chain activities such as rice milling and packaging in Kasunya and developed and seeded 1,500 acres of lands in Kumawu and Banda (Oti Region) respectively and also engaged private sector partners in these Enclaves.
YouStart
To equip participants with entrepreneurial skills, investment readiness tools as well as coaching and mentoring services under the YouStart initiative, Mr Ofori-Atta also said 26,626 persons nationwide have received business advisory support services since its launch last year.
“We will continue to work with Participating Financial Institutions, National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme (NEIP) and Ghana Enterprises Agency (GEA) to provide soft loans and managerial skills for the setting-up of youth-led enterprises”, he added.
National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme
The National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme with support from the Ghana Economic Transformation Project (GETP), launched the Hubs Acceleration Grant Programme in April 2023.
The programme has supported 30 Business and Innovation Hubs with grants to resource start-ups in communities nationwide. Each Hub has received up to $180,000 and is required to resource 20 start-ups.
In the second half of the year, Mr. Ofori-Atta, said 15 new Hubs will be supported to set up across the country.