Exim Bank without cash won't work- PEF boss

Chief Executive of the Private Enterprises Federation (PEF), Nana Osei-Bonsu, has said the government’s intention to turn the Export Development and Agricultural Investment Fund (EDAIF) into an Exim Bank will not achieve the needed results if it is not well resourced.

“Exim Guarantee, EDAIF as it was, needed US$200m to do its job; changing it into Exim without the US$200m will not change anything,” he told the B&FT in an interview.

“If we are creating an Exim Bank, what are the resources to empower dependent industries? Merely merging funds to form Exim Bank will not be enough. It must be stuffed with adequate resources so that businesses can access capital for technical skills development and other pertinent issues such as post-harvest losses,” he said.

Under EDAIF, businesses have often complained about their inability to access funds to expand while the fund has often said it is doing its best within its means.

The Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) has, for example, complained that its member businesses in the import and export sector have not been able to access the EDAIF for the past nine months, even though that was its primary mandate.

According to Nana Osei-Bonsu it would have been better if the institutions existed separately and complemented each other.

“I’m not against the Exim Bank being set up; I’m rather for having dual responsibilities that everybody is doing their thing and increasing the resource availability.

“I will prefer we leave them as it is with the low administrative costs and resource them to provide the needed finance to the private sector. EDAIF as it was had a function, merging EDAIF with Exim Bank, does it mean they are going to do everything EDAIF was doing plus everything EXIM is doing?

“In America, we have US Exim Bank and we also have SPA small business administration similar to EDAIF. If you really make an impact, then it is about making the resources available for them to dispense to the needed private sector businesses,” he said.

According to government, the Exim Bank will consolidate the export finance activities of the Export Development and Agricultural Investment Fund (EDAIF), Exim Guaranty Company and Export Finance Company.