MTN Ghana has launched the second edition of this year’s MTN Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME) Support Programme in Cape Coast.
The SME Support Programme is an initiative of the MTN Ghana Foundation in partnership with Innohub Foundation which will start from the Central Region to other regions in the country.
The initiative focuses on supporting businesses led by Youth, Women, and Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) with business development services and funding to grow their businesses and will run over a 5-year period.
The funds will be disbursed over time to 50 beneficiaries in the central region out of 150 beneficiaries across the country depending on each business need.
Explaining the need to support SMEs, Chief Corporate Services and Sustainability Officer, Mrs. Adwoa Afriyie Wiafe acknowledged the challenges such beneficiaries face with accessing capital, training and growth.
She therefore said the support will enable the beneficiaries to take advantage of digital opportunities in growing and marketing their products on the Internet.
In addition, she said “The support is expected to aid beneficiaries in adopting new business practices to enable them to scale their businesses and access formal finance if necessary…,” she continued.
Addressing the media at the launch, Mrs. Afriyie Wiafe said MTN Ghana will support the initiative with 2 million Ghana Cedis and 20,000 per business depending on the need.
However, she noted that the support will not only be in funds but also in capacity building and digital marketing among others.
“Last year we committed 1 million Ghana cedis to it, this year we are supporting it with 2 million Ghana cedis and the support is not only about cash, but it also involves training on new business practices, streamlining their businesses, formalizing it to a certain extent, helping them shape their businesses in a way that allows them to grow their businesses, allowing them to employ people and all those things that will help them to grow their businesses.”
The Executive Director of the Innohub Foundation, Nelson Amo outlined the role Innohub played in selecting the beneficiaries.
He said their role includes looking for the businesses, selecting them, screening them, providing training and managing the disbursement of funds to these businesses.
Mr. Amo expressed hope that the beneficiaries gain much from the support.
“…We do anticipate and expect that they would grow their businesses from one state to the other, they would increase their customer base, increase their revenues, they would also make good use of the platforms that MTN offers, like the mobile markets and leverage on digital marketing and what have you, to grow the kind of business they do.”
Additionally, they expect that they imbibe some financial disciplines that will help them to really keep the business growing over time.
He emphasized that “Most of them are in the food business, they can also contribute to the food security situation in this country.”
A beneficiary of the MTN SME support Program, Mr. Ekow Panyin Mensah who shared how the SME support programme will be beneficiary to him emphasized it will greatly support his piggery business.
“This will support my piggery business in a larger space. Currently being an unemployed graduate in-house, we go through a lot”
There is that social expectation that as a graduate you should have a white-collar job, but going into that aggregate space and having a big company like MTN supporting me will push me and make me a great person in the near future.
Read also: SUPREME COURT SUSPENDS SPEAKER’S RULING ON VACANT SEATS
Source: Flora Tang/ATLFMNEWS
