Mr. Richard Lassey, Board Member of the Venture Capital Trust Fund (VCTF), on Wednesday urged entrepreneurs and business persons to stop insisting on sole ownership and open up to partnership and cooperatives to enable them to access support to expand. “Many problems that hinder the growth of businesses are the old ways of doing things. It is time to embrace new ways and comply with the global world and allow others to run your businesses with you,” he said. Mr. Lassey, also the Member of Parliament for Keta, said this when he chaired a sensitization programme, dubbed, “The Road Show,” to introduce the work of VCTF to business persons in the Upper East Region. It was meant to sensitize entrepreneurs and the general public as to the procedure for accessing funds through the Trust Fund’s established venture capital finance companies and thereby quicken the pace of business transactions in the region. Mr. Lassey told the business persons in Bolgatanga that they were all qualified to apply to the fund for financial and technical support, provided they had the vision to grow their businesses. The requirements include registration of business as a company or Limited Liability Company, Tax clearance, business plan, and a partnership or a cooperative. Farmers, hairdressers, artisans, traders and persons in the hospitality businesses could all form cooperatives and apply to the fund for support, he said. He explained that the fund did not give loans with high interest rates but went into partnership with its clients, contributing 49 per cent to the business and saw to it that the business was run efficiently until it matured enough to survive on its own then VCTF withdraws taking the percentage of funds it put into it. Mr. Lassey said the fund which was started five years ago had invested in education, health, manufacturing and agriculture and was presently encouraging farmers to go into soya bean cultivation as there would be ready market for the crop. Mr. Daniel Duku, Chief Executive Officer of VCTF, in a speech read on his behalf, said the vision of the fund was to create a vibrant and well structured venture capital industry that could boast of investment in various sectors. This would lead to poverty reduction through job and wealth creation with a collateral growth in government revenues, he said. He explained that the fund was mandated to provide credit and equity financing to eligible venture capital finance companies to support Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) and provide money to support other activities and programmes for the promotion of venture capital financing. Mr. Duku said the fund had supported farmers to cultivate over 10,000 hectares of soya bean and sorghum, mainly in the Upper East, Upper West and Northern Regions, saying that in all its ventures, the fund did not charge interest but shared profits with its clients. Mr. Mark Woyongo, Regional Minister, appealed to the VCTF to assist existing businesses that were facing financial problems, citing the Irrigation Company of Upper Region (ICOUR) and the Tamale Rice Mills that had huge stocks of rice that could not be milled fast enough for the market due to inadequate equipment. He urged the Management of VCTF to relax some of its conditions so that it would be more attractive and easy for entrepreneurs in the region to access the fund. He asked municipal and district chief executives in the region to organise forums in their various areas to educate and encourage the people to access the fund. Source: GNA