Women are 85% of MASLOC loan beneficiaries in 2012

More than 53,490 people accessed loans from the Microfinance and Small Loans Centre (MASLOC) in 2012. Women accounted for about 85% of this figure. Women dominate the trading business and informal sector in Ghana.

“We are looking more into adding value to what they are doing rather than expecting them to buy and sell, like food processing to help them establish small scale cottage industries,” Mrs Bertha Sogah, the Chief Executive Officer of MASLOC,  said in an exclusive interview with ghanabusinessnews.com,

We want to use MASLOC to help alleviate poverty by targeting the informal sector especially the women. Most of the time women are quite vulnerable when it comes to bookkeeping and how to promote and brand their businesses. We are also looking at training them to be able to do this. There are plans to help local food joints to expand, she said.

MASLOC supports economic activities which include agro-processing, agricultural machinery, food crops, poultry, micro-enterprise, vocations, handicrafts, fish farming and.

“Our recovery rate presently is at 70% from a level of 6% in 2009 and we are trying to hit the 90% rate target. We are beefing up our monitoring system before, during and after loans are disbursed. We pay frequent visits to our clients and ensure that education drives what we are doing,” she revealed.

Mrs Sogah said MASLOC has about 30,000 applications pending approval. She admitted that the centre charges low interest and so a lot more people want to access the loans but there is not  enough funds to serve the high demand.

“We have also set up the compliance department that ensures that our officers do the right thing. Our credit officers are tasked to ensure that, loans disbursed are recovered. I think that in the next four years we should be okay,” she added.
Mrs Sogah appealed to government to give MASLOC more money, a little bit more of autonomy to be able to compete favourably in the sector.

MASLOC is a body responsible for implementing the Government of Ghana’s microfinance programmes targeted at reducing poverty, creating jobs and wealth. About 80,000 beneficiaries received loans totaling GH¢50m in 168 Districts and MASLOC made a profit of about GH¢5m since its inception.

By Pascal Kelvin Kudiabor