Mr Charles Eghan, Director of Member Services of the Institute of Chattered Accountants, Ghana (ICAG), on Friday urged government to establish a soft-loan scheme for young graduates with entrepreneurial abilities.
Mr Eghan was delivering a talk on "Re-kindling the spirit of Entrepreneurship - the Role of the HND Graduate" at the 10th Annual National Delegates Mini Congress of the Association of Polytechnic Higher National
Diploma (HND) Accountancy students in Ho.
He said existing credit facilities including the facility at the National Board for Small Scale Industry (NBSSI) were largely inaccessible
and called for government's urgent intervention to inspire young people to establish and grow their own businesses.
Mr Eghan also urged government to establish land banks in line with its policies on agriculture and lease those lands to young graduate investors to develop.
He said the downsizing of the country's public sector offered a golden opportunity to ignite the entrepreneurship mentality for which an enabling environment should be created to encourage the country's young graduates to venture into the private businesses.
Mr Eghan advised polytechnic graduates to believe in themselves and develop explorative attitudes to venture into entrepreneurship."You don't have to aspire to work in the ministries but rather desire to establish and grow your own business," he added. Mr Eghan advised them not to be afraid to take risks to launch their businesses.
Mr Haruna Abdul Haleem, National President of the Association urged his colleagues to start from a modest beginning and also consider pooling their
resources together for joint ventures.
Mr Mensah Noah, President of Ho-Polytechnic Chapter of the Association called for more seminars on entrepreneurship to prepare students for the
private sector.