Democracy needs to be backed by national development - Industralist

An industrialist has noted that democracy would only be meaningful to the people if a strong, competitive business and industrial environment is created to promote small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) for economic development.

Nana Asante Frimpong, chairman of the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) for Ashanti and Brong Ahafo regions, on Tuesday said democracy would remain just a political theory if it was not translated into economic development.

He was addressing a day's regional workshop, organised by the AGI for about 100 participants drawn from the business sector, financial institutions, the media and development partners, in Sunyani.

The workshop, sixth in the series and jointly sponsored by the National Investment Bank (NIB), German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), was expected to come out with recommendations for implementation by government at national and regional levels to strengthen the operations of SMEs in their operations.

Nana Frimpong called for strong partnership between government and the private sector to create more jobs.

He said the AGI was politically neutral and that “the association will only have a fall out with the government when she is not implementing pragmatic policies to moving SMEs forward”.

Mr. Francis Opoku Boateng, Brong Ahafo Regional Coordinating Director, said even though SMEs were important to the economic development of the country infrastructural problems such as bad roads and poor transport network were hampering their operations.

GNA