2ND UT Bank - Ghana Entrepreneur Awards held

The Second Edition of the UT Bank - Ghana Entrepreneur Awards, an initiative to honour and recognise outstanding achievements of Ghanaian and Foreign resident entrepreneurs in Small, Medium and Large Scale Enterprises (SMLEs) has been held in Accra. Organized by the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Ghana the awards seeks to honour entrepreneurs who have excelled at developing successful businesses, employment generation and contributing to the growth of the country’s economy. Other collaborators are Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, Ghana Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Entrepreneur Magazine and Deloitte and Touche and was under the theme: “Unleashing Entrepreneurial Capabilities to Meet the Global Challenges of the 21st Century.” Dr Joseph Siaw Agyepong, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of ZoomLion Ghana, and J.A. Plant Pool was adjudged the Overall Best Entrepreneur for 2012. Over 30 entrepreneurs including Mrs Edith Dankwa, the Executive Director of the Business and Financial Times, Africa’s leading provider of business information as the best entrepreneur in the print media industry category were honoured. The Vice President, Mr. John Dramani Mahama in a speech read on his behalf said: “Ghana has a promising future because some of its entrepreneurs are rising up to the occasion, and making phenomenal impacts in their various fields. “We are blessed in Ghana that, today many resilient people are rising to take advantage of the numerous opportunities in our business environment to make life better for other people and themselves.” Mr. Mahama observed that there are risk in running business in the country, as in other countries, though, but there are also great rewards. “The challenges are becoming more surmountable than some decades ago.” He challenged the country’s corporate leaders and entrepreneurs to identify high impact budding entrepreneurs to mentor and assist. “The mentoring will make their start-up journeys less lonely, and failure-proof. We will then be leading a movement to catalyse long-term economic growth of the country.” He assured that government will provide support to promote the spirit of entrepreneurship, especially among the youth, who complete school. Mr. Mahama called for collaboration between the universities and the polytechnics to provide entrepreneurship clinics that will whip their interest in self-employment, and new ventures creation. “I believe a few of you can team up to set up venture capital funds and angel investment funds that can give these young businesses the needed start-up capital to launch properly, in addition to the benefit of your experiences, which is priceless.” He therefore encouraged the multinational companies and established organizations to support young businesses with a percentage of contracts to provide the needed financial push, experience and exposure. He revealed that government is working with small business holders trained and set-up by the local enterprises and skilled development programme to give them contracts for the free school uniforms. Mr. Sam Ato Gaisie, President/ Founder of the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Ghana explained that the award is a platform to enhance growth in entrepreneurship, innovation to grow Ghanaian businesses.