Savannah News Online Reporting Only What Matters Most
Related Articles
Tamale, Ghana – The Head of Business Development Service at Development Bank Ghana (DBG), Anita Solomon, has underscored the need for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in Ghana to take book-keeping and other forms of record-keeping in their business seriously.
According to her, the lack of proper record-keeping especially financial records, sale of goods and stocktaking among others by MSMEs, could be disadvantageous to the growth and sustainability of their businesses.
Ms. Solomon’s call followed concerns raised by MSME operators at a workshop organized by the Ghana National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GNCCI) and the DBG in Tamale in the Northern Region.
A greater number of participants in the workshop complained over their inability to afford the services of auditors, reason why they did not have audited accounts or statements to enable them qualify for loans and other financing opportunities.
However, in response to the concerns by the MSMEs in an interview with SavannahNews on the sidelines of the one-day workshop, Ms. Solomon encouraged them to begin with simple book-keeping practices on their finances and sale of goods till when they could afford the services of auditors.
“DBG has been set up to help the private sector through long-term lending. So as a wholesale bank our business model is to work through partner financial institutions like commercial banks by giving them the money to on-lend to MSMEs. We do capacity building to de-risk MSMEs because we know that there are a lot of challenges like lack of book-keeping and audited accounts that limit these MSMEs access to financing and other opportunities”, Ms. Solomon explained.
She said “We want to get to a stage where MSMEs are able to access funds through our partner financial institutions. So as part of the programme that we have put together today, we are going through a process of learning where we’re building the capacity of about 100 SMEs in areas of risk management, financial management, and environmental, social and governance (ESG) policies. This is what we mean by de-risking our MSMEs.”
Under the theme: “Empowering SMEs with the requisite business skills for sustainable growth and resilience”, the workshop brought participants from the Upper West, Upper East, North East, Northern and Savannah Regions.
The aim of the workshop was also to introduce DBG’s partner banks including Access Bank Ghana, Consolidated Bank Ghana, Cal Bank Ghana and Zenith Bank Ghana in the Northern sector to businesses and to make these businesses aware of what DBG does as a bank.
She urged startups to among other things put in place ESG policies, human capital policies, and have their accounts in order for the next three years in order to make them bankable.
The Head of Business Development at DBG also indicated that “we have actually started onboarding savings and loans companies and other financial institutions so as to enable us reach more MSMEs that operate in places where commercial banks don’t operate.”
Since inception over a year ago, DBG has made some modest impact in the MSME landscape including giving loans to a few businesses.
“We have given loans to some MSMEs including a woman-led business recently where they are employing over 450 people where about 150 are women. We have also been able through our capacity building given access to markets to some companies, and also we have youth who have been trained to market their products through websites”, Ms Anita Solomon said.
She also encouraged MSMEs to visit the Ghana Integrated Financial Ecosystem (GIFE) platform where they would be exposed to many financial and management resources that would build their capacity to be able to keep records of sales, financial management among others.
Stephane Miezan, Second National Vice President of the GNCCI, said similar workshops had already been held in other regions in the South and from the North they were moving to the middle belt of the country.
“We have so far trained about a 1000 MSMEs across the country including those in the Northern sector”, he said.
Mr. Miezah also pointed out that although having an audited account was important to businesses, the first step towards that was keeping proper records of a business.
He also conceded that without proper book-keeping records, business people could miss out on opportunities like partnerships and access to loan schemes to expand or sustain their businesses, urging all MSMEs to endeavor to take book-keeping very seriously if they cannot even afford audit services.
By SavannahNewsOnline.Com/Kusiele Ziem
