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Women must seek professional advice before embarking on any financial transactions in their businesses, so they do not go bankrupt, Mrs. Peggy Lokko, a small and medium enterprise banking expert has asked.

She said this at the seventh annual National Women’s Economic Dialogue and Finance Fair in Accra, themed, ‘Assessing the contribution of women to the development of the economy’.

According to Mrs. Lokko, quite a number of businesses undertaken by women failed because they lack the needed financial advice to turn round their businesses.

Mrs. Lokko said some women also go out of business because they do not have the requisite knowledge in managing their finances.

She admitted that others were good though they have not acquired any knowledge in basic financing, and said such women make the work easy.

She said it was important for women in the SME sector to get their priorities, concerning their businesses right, while ensuring that they work with the advice given to them by their banks or other players in the finance industry to grow their businesses.

Mrs. Lokko urged the women to attend training sessions to boost their knowledge on how to manage their businesses.

She asked them to patronise the services of small consultancy firms that were ready to help them grow their businesses at a fee.

She also advised them to patronise products offered to them by the banks to grow their businesses, while urging them to be honest in their transactions to the banks.

Mrs. Constance Baah of the Ministry of Finance said government through the ministry was committed to the total development of women in the country and had come out with innovative means of reducing poverty in the country.

She said government had identified social protection as a tool for eradicating poverty and had plans of taking children off the streets by the end of 2018.

Mrs. Baah said government was committed to ensuring that the lives of orphans, the vulnerable and the aged were well secured, hence the continuation of the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme which started in 1990.

She urged the women to take advantage of government’s policies and programmes to better their lives and that of their families.