The Akuapem North Municipal Assembly has established a Traders Empowerment Fund to support small and medium scale businesses within the municipality.
The fund, as at December 2018, had supported about 250 women trading at the major markets in the municipality in the form of a loan to support their businesses.

This was disclosed by the Municipal Chief Executive, Mr Dennis Edward Aboagye at the launch of the Akuapem North Municipal newspaper at Akropong in the Eastern Region.

The aim of establishing the newspaper for the municipality was to help promote programmes, projects and activities that the government had executed in the municipality.

The newspaper would also serve as a platform to share the assembly’s testimony as a way of ensuring accountability and transparency and would be published every two years.

The first edition, which was out doored, had the headline “Okuapeman Rising, 2 years of NPP in Akuapem North”, showcasing projects and initiatives being undertaken since January 2017 to January 2019.

Mr Aboagye said, the Traders Empowerment Fund, was a local initiative developed by the assembly to empower traders and help improve their livelihoods.

He said since the first support was given to the traders, they have had a recouping rate of 98 per cent, which he described as a sign of good commitment from the beneficiaries.

Mr Aboagye said the assembly plan to scale up the support by adding people in other professions such as drivers, farmer groups and other association to also benefit.

He said the assembly had targeted to provide financial support to at least 1000 traders within the municipality by October 2020.

"We believe that when the people are economically empowered, they can pay their property rate, business operating permit for the assembly to generate more revenue to provide the basic infrastructure needs of the people’’, he indicated.