By Benjamin Akoto
Sunyani, Aug. 27, GNA – Mr John Ansu Kumi, the Sunyani East Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), has advised students to take advantage of the government’s entrepreneurial policies geared toward supporting start-up businesses.
Mr Kumi gave the advice in a speech read on his behalf at the 2022 edition of Food Bazaar organised by Department of Ecotourism, Recreation and Hospitality of the University of Energy and Natural Resources on the theme: “UENR at 10, Entrepreneurship for Sustainable Development: The Role of Hospitality Students,” on Thursday in Sunyani.
According to him, building a sustainable entrepreneurial country would help solve the country’s youth unemployment issues, saying that could be attained by strengthening the connection between education and the job market.
”There is thus the need for stakeholders to have access to finance, skills and available markets for young entrepreneurs alongside with resourcing institutions to support the ambitions of those who desire to pursue enterprise and growing the capacity of the private sector to create more jobs,” Mr Kumi added.
”That is why the government is keen on entrepreneurship and therefore implementing policies to support Start-ups like YouStart initiative which seeks to support youth-led enterprises with soft loans to help startups and small businesses to expand, with provisions made for individuals and groups”, he explained.
Later in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA), Dr. Yaw Boakye Agyeman, the Head of Department of Ecotourism, Recreation and Hospitality, School of Natural Resources said the food bazaar was to conscientize the of the students by giving them the platform to cook and sell for them to see their potentials and the possibility to create a business out of it.
He said other students, who developed products from local raw materials, were strengthened to be creative and become employers rather than employees to create wealth for themselves, saying, ”we don’t want them to join the already existing unemployed youth, they should be able to create their own jobs.”
Ms. Perpetual Zaazie, a Lecturer of Culinary Event Management, told the GNA in another interview that people were eating a lot of junk food, which was contributing to the increase in ailments such as hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol and blood pressure.
”We, therefore, decided to exploit the local dishes and encourage patronage among the students because their nutrition and health value are high,” she said.
GNA