SNV Netherlands Development Organisation has inaugurated six sustainable and eco-friendly businesses under the European Union funded Boosting Green Employment and Enterprise Opportunities in Ghana (GrEEn) project in the Ashanti Region.
All six entrepreneurs aside from receiving grants from the GrEEn Project are also graduates of the project’s six-month GrEEn Incubation and Acceleration Programmes, facilitated by its business hub partners in the Ashanti and Western Regions where the GrEEn Project is being implemented.
The beneficiaries include Tahir Taajuddeen, who is the owner of Tahir Fields Recycling at Sekyere – an oil-refining company that recycles waste engine-oil using green technology approaches.
He formally inaugurated his recycling site and unveilled a pre-treatment tank, filtration system, reactor, heating system, condensers, a post-treatment tank and a tricycle to scale up his oil recycling.
He used his matching grant of GH¢140,000 from the European Union in the maiden 2021 GrEEn Innovation Challenge to increase his daily oil recycling and refining from 12 to 940 litres – and by doing so created jobs for youths in the area.
At New Edubiase, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Supreme Pod Industry, Michael Acquah, established a cutting-edge cocoa-juice production factory.
He told the media that he realised cocoa farmers under-utilise cocoa, therefore he established his firm to ensure nothing is left to waste.
“Over the years, processing of cocoa has mainly been on the dried beans. In the value chain of processing these dried beans, there is the first part which is the husk – the bulk outer-layer that contains the beans; and there is also the pulp, which is the whitish substance around the cocoa beans. That sweet, whitish substance normally goes to waste when they break the pod to do the fermentation. So, I have developed the technology and innovation to extract and process it into juice,” he revealed.
Furthermore, Founder of Eye of the Brain Ecofeeds, Andrew Abuska, collects and recycles household and food waste. He uses the same to nurse maggots in producing feed for fish, poultry, sheep, cattle and goats.
Mr. Abuska unveilled a production facility to boost his production from 15 bags a week to 100 bags daily, and thus increase his supply of organic fertiliser to more than 1,000 farmers in the Sekyere Kumawu district and across the country after receiving a matching grant of GH¢135,000 from the GrEEn Project.
At Nyiaeso, CEO-Rural Green Recycling, Frank Amoah Boateng, runs a waste segregation site funded by the European Union and equipped with a crusher to shred Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) waste plastic bottles before selling them to recycling centres.
Due to a GH₵55,000 grant support from the GrEEn Project, he has increased plastic waste collection from 1.5 tonnes to 5 tonnes per month in Atasemanso; and from 0.2 tonnes to 4-6 tonnes per month at Obogu in the Asante Akyem district. Additionally, he has set up a material-recovery facility to collect PET, High Density Polyethylene (HD) and wastepaper to be recycled.
Founder of Pamela Chicks and Feed, Pamela Agbotse – who received a matching grant of GH₵100,000, inaugurated a poultry feed production facility equipped with a three-in-one (blower, hammer-mill and mixer) machine at Jamasi that produces 600 bags of feed a day as compared to the 200 bags she used to produce in a week. The investment has made it possible to meet market demand. Furthermore, the increased production capacity has enabled her to secure a project to produce feed for about 80,000 birds.
Similarly, CEO-Ofnet Farms, Foster Osae – with a GH₵70,000 grant from the European Union and Netherlands Embassy in Ghana, has expanded his capacity from 50 bags a week to 3,600 bags weekly; providing employment to 27 youths in the community.
In the Ashanti Region, the GrEEn Incubation Programme is facilitated by Recycle Up! Ghana and Women’s Haven Africa. In the Western Region it is facilitated by Duapa Werkspace, Social Entrepreneurship (SE) Hub and U-hub from the University of Mines and Technology.
The GrEEn Incubation Programme targets sustainable start-ups and early-stage businesses by providing business advisory support services, market access and linkages as well as financial support.
