Entrepreneurs and start-ups have been sensitized on another newly introduced business and entrepreneurship support initiative called the NBSSI/Mastercard Resilience & Recovery Project.
The NBSSI/Mastercard programme is targeted at Micro Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) which were highly hit and disparagingly affected by the novel Coronavirus pandemic, leading to business, employee lay-offs, loss of capital, expenditure increase, close-downs, downturns and other forms of economic losses.
The support scheme is a collaborative initiative of a United Kingdom based organization Mastercard Foundation and the government of Ghana which is being spearheaded by the National Board for Small Scale Industries/Business Advisory Centre (NBSSI/BAC).
The one day sensitization workshop which was facilitated by the Wenchi NBSSI/BAC Head Evelyn Yangnuu enlightened participants on the operations of the Mastercard Resilience Programme, the eligibility criteria, application requirements, categories/types of businesses that can apply as well as their limitations. As part of the criteria, businesses in Sectors such as Agri & Agro, Water & Sanitation, Healthcare & Pharmaceuticals, Garment & PPE, Creative Industry, Trade & Commerce, Education, Services, Food & Beverages, Tourism & Hospitality, Technology, are all eligible to apply. The amount a business applies depends on the its size and how much revenue it generates. The classification of businesses under this programme include Micro, the Small, the Medium Enterprise or Start Up.
Miss Evelyn Yangnuu used the occasion to educate participants on the difference between the CAPBUSS and the Mastercard programmes.
Participants asked variety of questions on some difficulties which were addressed by the BAC Head. They were grateful to the government for its thoughtful approach to save their businesses from collapse.
Credit: Information Services Department (ISD), Wenchi
Stanick Sofel Amuzu Kpodo