By Prince Acquah
Cape Coast, July 12, GNA – Professor Rosemond Aboagyewa Boohene, the Pro Vice Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast (UCC), has urged policymakers to amend the existing regulatory regime for micro, small and medium enterprises (smes) to make it easier for businesses to thrive.
She contended that the existing policy, which, among others, required such enterprises to renew their registration annually with information from an auditor was overly burdensome and encumbered the development of budding businesses, and the economy.
Prof Boohene, a Professor of Enterprise Development, was delivering her inaugural lecture on the theme: “Entrepreneurship and enterprise development in Practice: Tracking the pathways.”
The lecture connected theory, research and practice supported by practical examples and made a strong case for the need to deliberately support the growth of young enterprises.
“There are a lot of regulations they have to comply with. They are trying to make ends meet and make their businesses grow and so it sometimes becomes even difficult for them to remember all these regulatory regimes they have to comply with,” she said.
She, therefore, proposed a three or four-year renewal regime, for instance, to enhance compliance and give respite to budding firms.
She believed that a more friendly regulatory regime will expedite the formalisation of the economy and make it easier to effectively formulate and implement interventions for the industry.
The Pro Vice Chancellor indicated that graduate unemployment was a national security issue, and the country could fall on entrepreneurship to rescue the situation.
However, she observed that entrepreneurs were faced with a plethora of challenges, including limited access to finance, inadequate infrastructure, skill gap, inadequate human resources like mentors and coaches and a limited access to market.
“They produce the products and sometimes they don’t even know where to sell it. We have the African Continental Free Trade Area. Can we support them to leverage it?” she asked.
Prof Boohene called for the provision of infrastructure such as roads and electricity as well as providing the youth with managerial and entrepreneurial skills to thrive.
She called for a genuine financial support programme to give support to feasible and credible businesses or ideas and encouraged people to save and partake in group funding before relying on other sources.
“Even though there are interventions like MASLOC and NEIP, I believe that the entrepreneurs and the small enterprises will also have to start something and save on their own to supplement what other organisations give them,” she said.
Prof Boohene has over 27 years of experience in higher education and has significantly contributed to the academic and practical understanding of entrepreneurial processes, innovation, enterprise development and startup ecosystems.
In academia, Professor Boohene progressed from principal research assistant in 1997 to professor in 2019.
From April 1999 to date, she had practised as an assistant lecturer, lecturer, senior lecturer, associate professor and professor of enterprise development at UCC.
She has taught and supervised undergraduate and graduate students in human resource management, production and operations management, international business, industrial organisational psychology, principles of management, entrepreneurship and small enterprise development.
GNA