President Akufo-Addo has donated GH¢25,000 of his GH¢29,000 monthly salary to a young entrepreneur based in Gowllu in the Upper West Region.
He announced the donation at a business ideas competition organized by the Ministry for Business Development, dubbed the “Presidential Pitch” on Monday.
Akufo-Addo, while delivering an address at the event, said the donation was an addition to the GH¢50,000 cash prize to be given to her for winning the pitch competition.
“I hope the other contestants will excuse me if I single-out the youngest amongst you, the 19-year-old young lady from Gwollu in the West Sissala District, Vanessa Aisha Limann, for special attention, and a personal donation of GH₵25,000 from me, in addition to the GH₵50,000 the Ministry is to give her.”
“…By the way, that is one month’s salary. My take-home pay is GH₵29,000”, he added.
The beneficiary, 19-year-old Vanessa Aisha Limann, and a graduate of Methodist Girls’ High School managed to beat nine other finalists to win the maiden edition of the pitch.
More than 2,000 business proposals were submitted for the competition to receive funding for business growth and expansion, but only 500 proposals were selected and further reduced to 20, out of which ten were selected for the final pitch competition.
Ms Limann, who started her business with GH¢500 some three months ago said she hopes to expand her agro-processing business in the region and possibly extend it to other parts of the country while making it more profitable.
In a media interaction after the receiving the award, she said, “I completed High School last year (2017), and I was idle at home. Practically I had nothing to do so I decided to market my mother’s products thus going from shop to shop and also partaking in trade fairs. So it was 6 months ago that we partook in international trade fair and as I looked around I saw people with different products and I wanted to do something that will generate money for myself so I decided to come out with my own product through research on the internet and I have some knowledge on cereals and that’s how I was able to come with my own product, market it and brand it.”
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