The head of the transitional military government in Burkina Faso, Captain Ibrahim Traore has said that his government’s programme to boost indigenous entrepreneurship towards the country’s industrial growth has received widespread support.
The programme, organised under the Agency for the Promotion of Communal Entrepreneurship (APEC) is intended to build up local investment in various industries through communal entrepreneurship by popular shareholding. Captain Traore said that the first factories, among nany to be built across the country, will open soon.
The communal entrepreneurship scheme means that each community comes together to decide what projects they want for themselves based on their social and economic priorities. Once the issues that need to be addressed are identified within the communities they draw the budget and each community member will put in money he can afford. One option open is for members of the community to sell certain disposable assets and contribute the money raised as investment. That money will amount to a specific number of shares that will be held in the project.
The idea is drawn from popular shareholding, sources explain. The money you invest in makes you automatically a shareholder. Informed sources in the country say this is nothing new. They say these were the ideas of Thomas Sankara when he seized power in 1983 until his death four years later. The transitional military government is trying to revive several of these programmes initiated during the Sankara years.
