2 weeks Ago By Ghana News
By Iddi Yire Mpraeso (E/R), April 19, GNA – Mr Mahama Ayariga, the Majority Leader and Leader of Government Business in Parliament, has commended President John Dramani Mahama for establishing the Kwahu Business Forum. Mr Mahama Ayariga said this would serve as a platform to acknowledge the entrepreneurial spirit of the people and as a rallying point for entrepreneurship across the country. Mr Ayariga gave the commendation in his address at the Second Edition of the Kwahu Business Forum at the Mpraeso Social Centre in the Kwahu South District of the Eastern Region.
He said a 24-hour economy became the rallying cry of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) during the Election 2024 campaign, leading to its resounding victory because it represented enterprise, business, and most importantly jobs for the teaming youth, and that was why it was a very popular rallying point for the campaign. “Private sector is the engine of growth, and the business leaders are the drivers and operators of the engine. They are the job creators, and they are the innovators that we must nurture, grow, and sustain,” Mr Ayariga said.
He said the Forum demonstrated President Mahama’s commitment to this very task. Your Parliament, the Parliament of Ghana, the people’s Parliament stands ready to do whatever it takes to support your agenda to ensure growth and create jobs that are equitable. “Our various committees will support their sector ministers and the enterprises that work up to those sectors to identify their challenges, fashion out appropriate recommendations to help them solve those challenges and will monitor your ministers to ensure that they are delivering according to the promises you made to Ghanaians,” he said.
He assured the President that Parliament would also monitor and ensure the implementation of the promises to incubate and develop enterprises across the country and reiterated that the ruling NDC manifesto was full of programmes that aim to achieve that. Mr Ayariga said the 2025 budget that got passed had significant allocations aimed at implementing those promises and their job in Parliament would be to monitor and ensure that this happens. He lauded President Mahama for taking bold steps to support local enterprises.
Citing examples, Mr Ayariga said the president directed that 80 per cent of the common fund must be sent directly to the local assemblies. He said this money, when it gets to the local assemblies, would be used to pay for the services of local entrepreneurs and businesses who would be providing services to the local assemblies. Mr Ayariga said by his estimation, in the next four years, not less than five or six billion Ghana cedis would have hit the accounts of the local assemblies, which would have been used to service contracts by local enterprises and that would nurture the growth of local entrepreneurship across the country in the nation’s districts and assemblies.
Mr Ayariga said the President had also directed that when it comes to feeding the children in the schools, they should not procure the food items and ingredients and the things that they need in Accra. He said they were to transfer the money directly to the schools in the districts and the headmasters must procure whatever they need in the community where the school was located. He said one could again just imagine the number of secondary schools across the country.
“The number of school children who must be fed in those secondary schools and the amount of procurement that will take place in those communities and the payments to the service providers and how that will lubricate the economy of those communities and give local businesses a real opportunity to also thrive and grow,” Mr Ayariga said. “We are very proud of your initiatives and this forum is testament to your commitment to foster dialogue among entrepreneurs to create the platform for collaboration between entrepreneurs, the bankers and governmental agencies so that together we can fashion out a strategy for moving forward and indeed making Ghana a great and better place to live in,” he said. The Kwahu Business Forum, which is the brainchild of President Mahama, is a major initiative to foster entrepreneurship and support the growth of Ghana’s small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
It is a direct response to the government’s vision of expanding Ghana’s private sector capacity, especially in the agro-processing and manufacturing sectors of the economy. As a non-partisan national development agenda, the Kwahu Business Forum brings together business owners, industrialists, investors, start-ups, and major industry players to network, share experiences, and explore ways to raise capital or leverage available products from financial institutions. The maiden forum, held during the 2024 Easter festivities at Mpraeso, the capital of Kwahu South District of the Eastern region, successfully brought together business magnates and young entrepreneurs who shared their experiences and expectations with the then-candidate John Mahama.
The Second Edition of the Kwahu Business Forum on the theme: “The Future of Business: The Role of the Financial Sector,” is being attended by Businessmen, entrepreneurs and heads of financial institutions. GNA CAA.
