Business Mogul Kofi Sekyere Chairs Reconstituted Board For Venture Capital Fund

Mr. Kofi Sekyere, a renowned Ghanaian financial mogul has been appointed to lead the governing board of the Venture Capital Fund with a charge to work to ensure that Ghana’s small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are well resourced and enabled to play a more impactful role in the national economy.

Mr. Kofi Sekyere chairs a reconstituted nine-member board which includes Mr. Yaw Owusu Brempong, MD of the Venture capital Fund, the Hon. Fuseini Issah, the Member of Parliament for Okaikwei North constituency, Madam Efua Asabea Asare, Mr. Peterson Ekow Afedzie and Dr. John Kofi Mensah. The others are Mr. Franklin Owusu Asafo Adjei, Mr. Brian Frimpong and Mrs. Efua Apenteng.

Mrs. Abena Osei Asare, Deputy Minister of Finance, who administered the oath of office at the inauguration of the new Board recalled that: “Over time, various management issues have been cited in the Auditor General’s report from wrongful payments of millions of dollars, wrongful acquisition of a property, gratuity payment to the board without approval, granting huge loans without due diligence and others.”

Mrs. Osei Asare charged the Board to focus on their mandate, clean up the sunken image of the Fund and strengthen the capacity of its management and staff to be more innovative.

Mr. Kofi Sekyere thanked President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for the opportunity to serve the country and pledged the Board’s commitment to work hard to adequately resource and empower the SMEs.

“Personally, I fully appreciate the enormity of the task of steering the Venture Capital Fund in the best direction to enable it to fully actualize those critical objectives for which the fund was set up and as an avowed team-player, I wish to vocalize the collective commitment of this board to work diligently and assiduously to ensure that the mandate before us is executed with precision and without blemish,” Mr. Sekyere said.

The Board Chairman said as it has been evidently proven in developed economies, SMEs are the ‘indisputable engines of growth’ and that apart from propelling the national economy forward, the empowerment of SME’s and private sector ventures will be highly supportive of the government’s vision of One District, One Factory and a sure way of generating employment and upgrading the quality of life of Ghanaians.

He lamented that over the years, access to credit and equity funding for small and medium scale enterprises even for those operating in acknowledged priority sectors of the economy has been a major challenge.

“It is this challenge that I and my good colleagues on this Board will set out to rectify and work to enable our SMEs play that crucial role they should be playing in the growth and development agenda of our dear country,” said Mr. Sekyere.

The Fund was established in 2004 by the Venture Capital Fund Act 680, with the mandate of providing financial resources and equity funding for the development and promotion of venture capital financing for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in specified sectors of the Ghanaian economy.