The Microfinance and Small Loans Centre (MASLOC) is to be fully automated by the first quarter of 2011 to enhance disbursement and loans recovery, Mrs. Bertha Ansah-Djan, Chief Executive Officer of MASLOC, has disclosed.
“The Centre had installed new software and trained credit officers to inject professionalism into the centre’s operations.”
The Centre is expected to disburse over GH¢23million for micro-credit on-lending, GHC¢11,500,000 for small loans, GH¢1,000,000 for on-lending to other micro- financial institutions in 2011, and has so far disbursed GH¢3,000,000 to groups and individuals.
Mrs. Ansah-Djan at a media interaction in Accra said: “The new management adopted a multi-faceted loan recovery and prudent approach to salvage the old loans which have yielded 99.5 percent success against the 6.63 percent recovered in the previous administration. Management is committed towards the sustenance of the recovery efforts.
“MASLOC will increase its disbursements to cover all regions and districts throughout the country and continue with the decentralisation of its lending operations,” emphasising that it will continue to encourage groups to form credit unions and inculcate in them a saving culture.
Mrs. Ansah-Djan disclosed that management will roll-out a new scheme to partner a company that is ready to fund the cost of farm inputs, agro-processing machineries and sewing machines for hire purchase by qualified beneficiaries.
“As a result of the new management’s efforts, the threat of MASLOC becoming bankrupt is now a thing of the past; thanks to the commitment of the government,” she remarked.
MASLOC was created under the Office of the President with the objective of supporting government’s programme of sustainable reduction in poverty as indicated under the Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy, by providing micro-credit and small loans to the productive poor of the population.
MASLOC's facilities are principally targeted at the marginalised productive poor, who fall mostly within the micro-, small- and medium-enterprises sector, which comprises women, the physically challenged and the youth.
As at 2008, approximately 279,000 micro-entrepreneurs had benefitted from the micro-finance scheme.
MASLOC was introduced in 2004 in collaboration with the World Bank, with nine new regional offices launched in September 2006, with seed-money of US$50million towards the establishment of a Micro Credit Fund to provide capital for the country’s micro-finance initiatives.
Under the Scheme, individuals, groups and businesses are eligible to apply for loans between GH¢100,000 and GH¢250,000. Groups need to have a minimum of five and maximum of 25 members to access up to GH¢250,000. Each member of the group could access GH¢10,000, refundable within one year with 10 percent interest.
Other categories which could access loans from GH¢20,000 up to GH¢250,000 attract the going Bank of Ghana prime interest rate.
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