Accra, 3rd January 2020 - Ken Ofori – Atta, Minister for Finance today announced the establishment of the “African Sankofa Savings Account”, a diasporan investment and savings fund to provide investment opportunities for Diaspora Community worldwide.
At a press briefing in Accra today, the Minister explained that the fund will accommodate both the high and low income earners who want to invest in their homeland adding that it would be another source of revenue for the country, “these would be invested in tourism infrastructure, agriculture value addition, real estates, music, culture, retirement homes etc.”
He said the fund has the potential to raise about three billion dollars within a year or two, and the yield results may be beyond what the traditional exports are earning currently.
The Ministry of Finance, Bank of Ghana and Ghana Investment Promotion Centre are collaborating and working on the modalities which will soon be made public.
The Minister of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts, Barbara Oteng Gyasi lauded the project saying, one of the seven pillars they have adopted in ‘Beyond the Year of Return’ was to create investment opportunities for the Diasporans and the establishment of the Sankofa fund was in the right direction.
“Throughout the year of return campaign, we have always engaged our visiting global family on opportunities for investment in Ghana and this account will give them the opportunity to do that. “
Hon. Oteng Gyasi acknowledge that the Year of Return though was successful, the private sector should refrain from unnecessarily increasing the price of their goods and service, which has the potential of pushing tourists away to other destinations.
Some Africans from the Diaspora who have lived in Ghana for a number of years who were present at the event lauded the government for the initiative. They said they were ready to support government initiatives that would bring more diasporan investors and visitors back home.
The “Year of Return, Ghana 2019” is a major landmark spiritual and birth-right journey inviting the Global African family, home and abroad, to mark 400 years of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in Jamestown, Virginia.
Close to a million diasporans are believed to have made the pilgrimage to Ghana when the programme ended at the end of December 2019.
Those present included Hon Charles Adu Boahen, Deputy Minister for Finance, H E Ambassador Erieka Bennet, Head of Mission, Diasporan African Forum, Mr. Akwasi Agyeman the Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Tourism Authority, Mr Akwasi Ababio, Director of Diaspora Affairs at the Office of the President and some Diasporans living in Ghana. END