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Graduate abandons corporate dream, goes into gari production
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• Sharon busily processing some cassava
One advantage that is at the disposal of today’s entrepreneurs is innovation.
The scientific community today has created a platform for innovation especially among young people.
So, the current generation of young men and women who venture into entrepreneurship are making things through technology and innovation.
In the face of the current economic turbulence, there have been calls on government to ban or look into the importation of goods that can be locally produced to improve the market in Ghana.
Interestingly, there are young entrepreneurs already in the system adding value to the locally produced goods and one such inspiring innovator is 32-year old Sharon Ayertey Yomle who is defying all odds at Dodowa to add value to gari.
Sharon grew up at Dodowa in the Greater Accra Region and attended Krobo Girls Senior High School in the Eastern Region where she studied Business and later graduated from the University of Cape Coast with a first degree in Commerce in 2019.
She, like most young Ghanaians, was attracted to securing a corporate job after school though she had a business plan.
Interacting with The Spectator , Sharon intended to start this project during her retirement but she was privileged to join the British Council and Giz Jobs in Africa incubation programme in 2019.
According to her, the idea to start Yomle Foods was born at the programme when one facilitator advised her to start from somewhere.
The advice ignited some passion in her to take that step with the little resources she had.
The first resource at her disposal started her first product, Yommy Gari and it was welcomed on the market.
Subsequently, she added the Soya Gari Mix, Tombrown, Rice Cereal Mix, Ginger Powder and others.
She stated that Yomle Foods sought to be a sustainable food production hub as she planned to give more income to rural farmers and women by engaging their services in producing these products.
This, she said, would give them a livelihood and a market for their farm produce.
Ms Yomle admitted that as a graduate of the just-ended acceleration programme, Orange Corners, organised by the Netherlands Embassy and its partners between March and August this year, it has given her a whole idea of the future direction of Yomle foods in the next five years through the pragmatic steps in place to achieve that.
She explained that as small-scale business, she encountered many funding challenges.
She cited for instance, the prices of raw materials, packaging materials and penetrating the current market with the products to be daunting.
Though faced with these challenges, she is grateful to the Ghana Enterprise Agency for being available and providing entrepreneurial support financial literacy training to young businesses.
She noted that there had been meetings and suggestions in the soya beans value chain and hopes the government would listen to these tabled concerns of those in the value chain and provide the needed solutions to stop the increment in the prices of such products to enable small-scale businesses to stay in business.
Ms Yomle stated that the importation of soya for instance, had been causing a price hike in soya beans so local small businesses like hers and those in soya oil production and other soya based products were forced to use more capital on raw materials but was optimistic about government’s intervention.
From Ken Afedzi, Dodowa
The Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod) has announced changes to how the purity of gold will be tested for local purchases, with the new rules taking effect from October 1, 2026.
The notice was issued today by the Compliance Directorate of the Ghana Gold Board.
Under the new arrangement, the Water Density method will only be used to give an indication of the purity of gold and will no longer serve as the final basis for determining its purity, price or payment.
In a compliance notice issued on September 28, GoldBod said X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) testing would become the definitive method for determining the purity of gold doré purchased by the Board and its licensed buyers.
It explained that the applicable payment for gold would therefore be based on the purity determined through the XRF method.
However, GoldBod said where a licensed buyer is unable to use XRF due to genuine operational or logistical challenges, or where both the buyer and seller voluntarily agree to use the Water Density method, the gold would be purchased at a 0.7 percent purity discount.
The Board introduced a tolerance level for differences between successive XRF test results for the same gold or transaction.
According to the notice, the permissible difference between one XRF report and another must remain within plus or minus 0.1 percent.
GoldBod said any difference beyond that range would have to be verified before the transaction is completed or reported to the Board.
The new requirements apply to all aggregators and licensed gold buyers, who have been directed to ensure that they are fully prepared to comply with the changes by October 1.
GoldBod said the notice forms part of the terms and conditions of licences issued to aggregators and licensed gold buyers.
It warned that failure to comply with the new requirements would constitute a breach of the applicable licence conditions and could result in regulatory or enforcement action under the Ghana Gold Board Act, 2025 (Act 1140).
By: Jacob Aggrey
Investigative journalist Manasseh Azure Awuni has waded into the debate over government support for Ghanaian evacuees, describing complaints over the amount given as “nauseating entitlement.”
In a strongly worded post shared on Facebook, Manasseh argued that Ghanaians who were airlifted from South Africa after xenophobic threats should show gratitude rather than discontent.
“Some countries abandoned their people because they either did not care enough or they did not think it was economically wise to spend huge sums of money chartering planes and evacuating their people. Your country did not abandon you. It chartered aircraft and lifted you,” he wrote.
According to him, government spent huge sums to bring citizens home at a time when the country has pressing needs that could have been addressed with that money, but no one complained because “your life as a citizen is just as pressing.”
Manasseh said it was therefore worrying that after the evacuation and subsequent financial support from the state, some beneficiaries are complaining that the amount is not enough.
“Sir, some people need only 2000 cedis to start a business, but the state has not given them anything. Others worked and paid taxes while you were away, but have not received a pesewa from the state. Think about that,” he stated.
He added that while the frustration of losing opportunities abroad is understandable, the evacuation was not forced but was done to save lives.
He added that “We can sympathise with whatever opportunities you may have lost by returning home, but note that the government did not forcibly evacuate you. Your safety was paramount. You could have lost your life if the government had abandoned you.”
Manasseh warned that such complaints only fuel negativity in the political space.
“Your complaints will please a section of our society that lives in perpetual search of negativity with which to score cheap political points. But to the discerning people, it is a nauseating sense of entitlement,” he stressed.
He concluded with a call for appreciation “And whatever you have been given to ease your return is an added bonus. Appreciate it and pray for more. There’s a vast difference between a favour and an entitlement.”
By Edem Mensah-Tsotorme
