The National Lottery Authority has made a donation of GHC 10 million to the Finance Ministry in support Government’s flagship programme, ”YouStart” an initiative that aims at providing about one million jobs to Ghanaian youth within a space of three years.
Speaking at the ceremony, the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, said the YouStart initiative would be a vehicle for supporting young entrepreneurs to gain access to capital, training, technical skills, and mentoring to enable them to launch and operate their own businesses.
The Minister also revealed that local banks in the country have agreed to increase their SME portfolio up to GHC5 billion over the next 3 years.
Ken Ofori-Atta said the initiative will be implemented by the Ghana Enterprises Agency (GEA), the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme (NEIP), and partner financial institutions.
Hon Ken Ofori-Atta stated young people under the program will benefit from District Level Loans under 10,000 GHC after 2-3 months of training and Soft loans of up to GH¢50,000 to help start-ups (in particular by young graduates from and school-leavers) and small businesses to expand.
The donation was led by the Director-General of the National Lottery Authority Mr. Sammy Awuku with the support of the Board Chairman of the NLA Togbe (Hon) Francis Albert Seth Nyonyo on Tuesday, 15 February 2022.
On his part as the Director-General of the NLA, Mr. Sammy Awuku reiterated the NLA’s commitment to pushing the government’s agenda through its good courses foundation.
He stated that the ten million cedis donation from the NLA to the finance Ministry forms part of other initiatives to be embarked on by the institution to ensure that the youth of Ghana gain financial assistance through the YouStart initiative by the NPP government.
Samuel Awuku assured the NLA’s commitment to increasing its target by end of the year to help embark on a series of corporate social responsibilities.
On his part, the board chairman for NLA Togbe (Hon) Francis Albert Seth Nyonyo further assured the NLA’s Board’s support and commitments to the management of NLA to help increase revenue for the year 2022 under review.
YouStart is an ambitious plan by Government to leverage entrepreneurship to create 1 million jobs in the next 3 years by providing youth access to capital, market linkages, mentoring among several others to aid them in starting or expanding their businesses.
Story by:Kwaku Stephen
