Mrs Barbara Gbologah, Country Director of the Pyxera Global implementing the Ghana Supply Chain Development Programme (GSCDP) said the programme was committed to growing Small Medium Enterprises (SMES) to perform favourably in the extractive sector.

She said, “Our quest to develop and support SMEs to grow within their various supply chains is a passion dating back to our very first supply chain programme in Azerbaijan, from which new foot prints could be traced to our work in Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique and Ghana.”

Mrs Gbologah was speaking at an engagement with SMEs and other partners on the “Story So far”, an initiative by the PYXERA Global to tell its achievement since its inception in Ghana.

Pyxera Global has more than 20 years of experience in enhancing the capabilities of local companies to successfully become suppliers to multinational corporations.

The company worked with promising enterprises from food services to fabrication and excavation as well as engineering to meet the procurement demands of large corporations.

Mrs Gbologah said the aim of the programme was to ensure that the local business community was able to actively participate in and benefit from new resource discovery, ultimately build a successful business and sustainable communities.

“Over the years we have come to appreciate the value of partnerships and we have come to adopt a participatory approach to our engagement with local communities and businesses whether it is working on our value chain programmes or our Probono programmes, where we have successfully harnessed the combined knowledge and resources”

She said the programme was also to create pathways that allowed their partners to come together to address pertinent industry and community issues in the oil and gas, agriculture, health, tourism, water and sanitation, education sectors.

Mrs Gbologah said despite the initial tussle of selling the idea of building local capacity in the sector, “Three years on, the Ghana Supply Chain has demonstrated impact, in the number and value of contracts won, the number of SMEs and BSP trained and certified this confirms the earlier position that given the necessary tools and skills local SMEs can compete.”.

Mr Kweku Bentil, Programmes Manager of PYXERA Global Ghana Supply Chain Development Programme said since its establishment in March 2013, it had provided capacity-building services and improved the competitiveness of local Small and Medium Enterprises in both the Oil and Gas, Mining, and Energy related sectors.

He pointed out that the broad impact had been the number and value of contracts that SMEs had won with IOCs and other multinationals and training and capacity-building programmes and creating market linkages opportunities.

Mr Bentil said sustainability had become a major focus of both programmatic and managerial decisions to ensure sustainability after the life of the SCD Programme.

He said as the programme approached its final year of operation, the SCD programme renewed its focus to prepare businesses by providing consulting services to the SMEs to ensure sustainability of the programme and continued progress toward its goals.

Mr Bentil acknowledged the contributions of USAID and other stakeholders such as Petroleum Commission, Ministries of Energy and Trade and Industry, Tullow, GEO &G and Amaja towards the success of the programme.