Nana Yaa Ahmed, the Senior Associate, ENSafrica Ghana has urged Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to prioritize corporate governance to attract the needed funding to expand their businesses.

She said a proper corporate governance structure will strengthen their operations and allow their businesses to grow in an efficient and effective manner.

Mrs Ahmed made the call in Accra at a two-day training workshop for SMEs on the topic “Legal Environment of Business” organised by Corporate Secretarial and Training Services Limited and supported by the National Investment Bank.

She educated the participants on types of business entities under the country’s legal regime, including sole proprietorship, partnership, limited liability, corporation, among others.

She urged SMEs to be innovative and form linkages to achieve optimal performance and returns, since that was the path to travel to remain competitive on the market and to boost their attraction to investors.

Mrs Ahmed said SMEs played a vital role in sustaining the country’s economy to achieve its development objectives through job creation, and contribution to the Gross Domestic Product.

“It is indisputable that given the necessary support, the SMEs could become key parts of the nation’s economy, creating jobs and wealth for the population,” he said.

She urged SMEs to adhere to good corporate governance and adopt best practices, adding that, enterprises must focus on doing the right things to keep them going.

According to her, it was necessary for SMEs to be abreast with the tenets of corporate governance to know their rights and responsibilities and manage their companies effectively.

Mrs Matilda Osei, Client Service Manageress, Registrar General Department, touching on business registration process, reminded SMEs about the need to ensure their businesses were registered to protect their corporate identity and proprietorship.

She took them through the processes of business registration, company regulations, statutory fillings and other related issues on the business registration forms.

She expressed concern about the tendency by business entities that refuse to file annual returns and ignore the requirement to renew the registration of their businesses, which she explained tends to undermine the department’s revenue-generation capacity and its role of facilitating good corporate governance.

Mrs Osei said the department had intensified efforts at helping the business community to have better understanding of the Companies’ Code to promote compliance with the regulation on annual renewal of business names and partnerships and the filing of annual returns based on the turn-over.

She said the department would continue to educate its members on good business practices and asked the SMEs to ensure proper record-keeping.