Development of entrepreneurship in Ghana Entrepreneurship in Ghana was fairly developed before the first arrival of Europeans.

Our ancestors identified opportunities for trade with other tribes and risked resources to produce or procure the relevant items for trade. They worked precious minerals into jewels, implements and weapons. They manufactured bows, made their own mats and wove cloth such as Kente and other fabrics. Although our ancestors initially produced these materials for their own immediate needs, as they advanced on the path of civilization, they exchanged products with their neighbours and later, carried over the trade to larger areasi. Early entrepreneurial activity in Ghana was characterized by barter in items such as trinkets, ornaments, weapons (including guns and gunpowder), alcohol and leather. Gold dust and cowries were used as the initial forms of currency leading to the creation of gold weights and then to nickel coins towards the close of the nineteenth century. We can also classify the early European explorers who arrived in the Gold Coast as entrepreneurs. In the face of peril and uncertainty, they risked significant resources for the purpose of achieving profit by identifying trading opportunities with the indigenous people. The first Europeans to set foot in Ghana the Portuguese, in 1471, engaged in trade with the people of Edina (now Elmina). The Dutch and English governments after forcing the Portuguese out of Ghana issued Charters to individual trading companies to strengthen their operations including the deplorable slave trade along the West African coast. When the slave trade was abolished, both local and European entrepreneurs participated in 'legitimate trade'. Reynoldsii reports that many of the pre-colonial entrepreneurs were slave traders who used their experience from dealing with foreigners during the slave trade to profit from legitimate trade.

After being colonised, the Gold Coast became a raw material producer for industrialized European countries feeding the factories of European entrepreneurs as well as providing a market in which European firms could sell their finished goods. This spawned a further set of Ghanaian entrepreneurs large-scale farmers and exporters of cash crops, predominant among them being the Ashanti cocoa farmer iii. As receipts from export of gold and cash crops led to a demand for imported textiles, beads, wines and spirits, there emerged yet another group of indigenous entrepreneurs, some of whom formed limited liability companies of their own to import these products. They sought funding from the newly established Bank of British West Africa in the form of advances and overdrafts to finance their trade although it appears that Bank of British West Africa and its successors paid more attention to foreign businesses operating in Ghana rather than local entrepreneursiv. Policies of the colonial government were focused on protecting British overseas interests and Ghanaian entrepreneurship was discouraged from engaging in entrepreneurial activities. For example, Ghanaians whose lands contained diamond were prevented from mining unless they were prepared to use native or crude methods. This undermined entrepreneurial development as the mode was tedious and did not encourage large scale mining. Consequently, instead of the entrepreneurs of the time channelling their energies into productive ventures, they concentrated on fighting the exploitative colonial system. An example of such an entrepreneur according to Gockingv is Nii Kwabena Bonne II, a chief who made a call to boycott European and Lebanese merchandise like cotton, textiles, canned meat, flour and spirits in 1947 to express displeasure of the then developments that were focused on protecting British overseas interests.

The immediate period after independence witnessed the introduction of a mixed economic system on one hand, encouraging private and foreign participation in the economy and on the other encouraging government entry into enterprises through companies owned either solely by the state or in joint partnership with the private sector. Nkrumahs government initially supported private enterprise but in 1960, Nkrumah announced that his government would place far greater emphasis on Ghanaian cooperatives rather than encourage Ghanaians to start private sector business enterprisesvi. Hakamvii argues that Nkrumah did this because he did not want to create indigenous capitalists who would be difficult to control politically. He was apparently worried that they might develop into a powerful capitalist group that could threaten his socialist regime. Instead, to encourage enterprise leading to expansion of the economy, government encouraged development of foreign entrepreneurs through granting of inducements including generous customs duties and tax relief packages for infant industries. The National Liberation Councils (NLC) government, which overthrew Nkrumahs government, showed concern for local entrepreneurs when in 1968 with a policy document entitled The Promotion of the Ghanaian Business Enterprise was published. The policy sought to put stability above growth, economy, to one characterised by private-enterprises and decentralised system. This was to be achieved within a framework of market-oriented economy ,backed by preference for Ghanaians). Under the NLC however, several small scale enterprises went bankrupt due to the credit squeeze and devaluation that resulted from adhering to conditions attached to International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans the government had taken out to restore the countrys economy. a nationalistic agenda through a policy of Ghanaianisation (i.e. creating a
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It is important to note that Busias government was the first (at least post independence)to extensively draw policies and establish bodies to aid in developing the Ghanaian entrepreneur. The government had an entrepreneurial development plan that sought to foster growth of private industry and enacted the Aliens Compliance Order to get rid of foreigners in the country who were believed to have taken up most of the small and medium scale enterprises which should have been in the hands of Ghanaiansviii. In the same period, the government established the Ghana Enterprises Development Commission and Small Business Credit Scheme to help Ghanaian manufacturing enterprises to obtain credit for their operations. Provisions were also made for Ghanaians to purchase the businesses of foreigners. Acheampongs government (a military one that overthrew the Busia led government) specified areas reserved for state ownership, joint state/foreign ownership, private Ghananian/foreign ownership and purely Ghanaian ownership. This resulted in the mushrooming of many small businesses. The policy of Operation Feed Yourselves and Industry which Acheampong implemented benefited Ghanaian entrepreneurs because importation of certain products were banned leading to Ghanaian production of such goods. After two years of sustained economic stability, a decline set in and by the mid 1970s, there was discontentment among Ghanaian entrepreneurs because a few of their own colleagues were gaining undue advantage of others because of their social and political connections. The Rawlings government initially appeared to be opposed to entrepreneurship. Properties worth millions of cedis including a number of private manufacturing companies were confiscated on grounds of allerged financial and economic malpractices. A National Public Tribunal was set up where several high profile entrepreneurs such as B.A Mensah (International Tobacco Company Limited), J. K.

Siaw (TATA Breweries Limited) and Dr. Safo Adu (Industrial Chemical Limited) were prosecuted and lost their businesses in unclear circumstancesix. However, in an ironic twist of events, because of conditions attached to aid being sought from the West, Rawlings government had to embark upon the drawing up and implementation of the Economic Recovery Program (ERP), the second stage of which sought to encourage small scale industries and liberalise the economy. The open and uncontrolled importation of finished goods however put many local industries out of business. Under the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), a successor policy to the ERP, the government embarked on a divestiture implementation policy whereby it sold its interests in a large number of state enterprises such as West Africa Mills, Ghana Agro-Food Company, The Coca Cola Bottling Company of Ghana Limited and Golden Tulip Hotelx to the private sector. Typically though, given the size and the scale of the investment required, the entrepreneurs who were able to participate and benefit from the government's divestiture programme, constituted a small number with deep pockets or who were able to partner with foreign investors. To encourage Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into Ghana, the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) was established by parliament in 1994. Between 1994 and June 2002, GIPC registered 1,309 FDI compared to [ ] in 1983 . The Kufuor Government which came into power in 2000 sought to make the private sector the engine of growth in the economy and embarked on a number of policies with the aim of driving and encouraging entrepreneurship in Ghana. It also sought to take the liberalization of the economy (started by Rawlings) one step further by deregulating the petroleum sector and seeking public-private partnerships to participate in a number of sectors such as energy, ICT and telecommunications. The following policy initiatives of the Kufuor Government were also aimed at encouraging entrepreneurship:
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 Promoting, developing and sustaining growth of micro and small enterprises (MSE) and training graduates to establish their own micro and small enterprises. Establishing the Ghana Venture Capital Trust Fund in 2004 to provide long-term capital for small and medium scale enterprises. Full tax exemption from corporate income tax, dividend tax and capital gains tax was granted to venture capital companies and investment in venture capital companies was made fully tax deductible. Removal of import duties and Value Added Tax on industrial raw materials, irrigation pumps, fishing ropes and nets. Introducing an unlisted securities market on the Ghana Stock Exchange to enable SMEs secure equity financing. Arranging 500 tailor-made business improvement programmes for 15,000 entrepreneurs by the National Board for Small Scale Industries by 2007. Review of petroleum exploration law to make Ghana an attractive destination for investments in hydro carbon exploration. What is clear from the foregoing discussion is that, although entrepeneurship has been with us from pre-colonial times, Ghana has not always been a nation that has cherished and encouraged entrepreneurship. More recent governments however, have made concerted attempts to encourage and develop entrepreneurship as they recognise the important role entrepreneurship plays in the development of a nationxi.
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i ii iii

FK Buah: A history of Ghana, Macmillan, London and Basingstoke, 1980 Reynolds, Trade and Economic Change on The Gold Coast 1807-1874, Longman, London, 1974 Reynolds, Trade and Economic Change on The Gold Coast 1807-1874, Longman, London, 1974

iv v vi vii viii

T E Anin, Banking in Ghana, Woeli Publishing, Accra, 2000 Gocking R., S. The history of Ghana. Westport: USA, Greenwood Publishing Group Inc. 2005 Kellick, Tony, Development Economics in Action, Heinemann, 1978 Hug, M.M, The economy of Ghana, Macmillan Press, London, 1989 Asamoa, Ansa Socio Economic Development Strategies of Independent African Countries, the Ghanaian experience. Ghana University Press,

Ghana, 1996.
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