The Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, has announced a staggering package of financial support for a teeming number of small and medium scale businesses.
The announcement followed a disclosure to create an initiative that would see government officials engage the youth in drawing their attention to opportunities in entrepreneurial initiatives.
That was his way of exploring the world of business by disorienting their minds off white collar jobs that come periodically, as hundreds of thousands of graduates wait their turn for recruitment into the public service and the national security institutions.
In step with tradition
The Minister, in encouraging the youth to try those paths, knows that Ghana has a rich history of businessmen and businesses spanning the regions and districts, and whose marks would be all over the place but for political contortions that rid the nation of its entrepreneurial spirit.
So, we know, for instance, the contribution of the Siaws, the Kwaabena Darkos, the Mechanical Lloyds and Gbedemahs as well as BK Yemos and Appentengs.
Additionally, we had the Gbewaa and Modern Ghana Builders Constructions – all owned by Ghanaians with a vision to widen their horizons in terms of the efforts to generate employment and augment government’s programmes of improving lives and livelihoods.
The string of businesses that still line the Agbogbloshie and North Industrial Area stretch through Tema and upwards into the regions tell a story about it not being late to pick up the pieces and develop our entrepreneurial potential as a matter of policy.
We at the Daily Statesman believe that when, under the JJ Rawlings administration, we switched to the JSS educational scheme, the idea was to create a generation of people independent enough to look forward, without waiting for government to publish notices in papers about recruitment processes that are sometimes tainted with political tinkering.
Laying structures into the future
Already, the Akufo-Addo government has provided evidence of its commitment to creating a business environment and generation to restore that lost legacy through the several initiatives like the Planting for Food and Jobs, Youth in Agriculture and Youth in Entrepreneurship programmes. These are all aimed at ensuring that all able-bodied youth take their future into their hands, by thinking big and leaping into the future on the wings of small businesses that grow into giant companies to support the national transformational agenda.
At this point, however, we believe that it is necessary for us to re-adjust our curricula to reflect that vision by designing business classes for our boys and girls from six-year-old onwards.
Living examples
We have seen some shades of this development in the Ashesis and a few others, and we believe, if ingeniously contrived, such a national curriculum would go a long way to seal the vision that the Finance Minister and government, for that matter, has for the nation and its teeming youthful population.
At least, we know by our history that local Kwahu entrepreneurs, for instance, had a culture of involving their kids in petty businesses like bolts and nuts trade, hardware merchandise, or milling, apart from every child having to be on the cocoa farm before going to school.
Additionally, we know of homes and families that have thrived and made quite a name in Ghana through very small beginnings, but also emerging ones like Dr Kwaku Oteng, Richard Adjei-Mensah Ofori-Atta, the ABSA CEO, Osei Kwame Despite and several others across the regions.
It is the opinion of the Daily Statesman, this relevant conversation becomes a collective burden that we all need to share in adding to the huge responsibility of creating jobs and improving lives and livelihoods of Ghanaian youth.
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