MASLOC to be fully automated early next year

The Microfinance and Small Loans Centre (MASLOC), is to be fully automated by the first quarter of 2011 to enable the business entity to disburse and recover loans with professionalism and efficiency.

Mrs Bertha Ansah-Djan, Chief Executive Officer of MASLOC, who announced this on Wednesday at a press conference in Accra, said the centre had installed new software and trained credit officers to inject professionalism into their operations.

She said the new management that took over from the previous administration in 2009, had adopted a multi-faceted loan recovery and prudent approach to salvage the old loans.

Mrs Ansah-Djan said the move had yielded 99.5 per cent success against the 6.63 per cent of the efforts of the previous administration, adding that management is committed towards the sustenance of the recovery efforts.

She chastised the previous administration for its weak credit monitoring and poor financial reporting and information management systems, poor database of loan beneficiaries and the unprofessional manner the loans were disbursed.

Mrs Ansah-Djan said the new administration had so far disbursed GH¢3 million to groups and individuals.

She said management had targeted to expend GH¢23 million for micro-credit on lending, GH¢11.5 million for small loans and GH¢1 million for on lending to other micro financial institutions in 2011.

Mrs Ansah-Djan said MASLOC would increase its disbursements to cover all regions and districts throughout the country and continue with the decentralisation of its lending operations.

She said the centre would continue to encourage groups to form credit unions and inculcate in them saving habits.

Mrs Ansah-Djan said management would 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.

She said management anticipated that when a bill, which was before Cabinet for consideration, was passed into law it would empower MASLOC to source funding at the open financial market to wean the centre of government’s support.

Mrs Ansah-Djan said management is committed to sustaining the viability of the centre to assist the informal sector to “assist in the national quest to eradicate poverty in the country and greatly enhance the better Ghana Agenda.”

“As a result of the efforts of the new management, the threat of MASLOC becoming bankrupt is now a thing of the past, thanks to the commitment of the government,” she added.

MASLOC was established by the erstwhile government of the New Patriotic Party to serve as the fiduciary agency of government for the prudent and judicious management of government and development partners’ funds for micro and small-scale- credit programmes.

The objective of the scheme is to support government’s programme of a 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 marginalized productive poor, who fall mostly within the micro, small and medium enterprises sector, which comprise women, the physically challenged and the youth.

The most common tenure of the loan facilities is 12 months, applicable
mainly to commerce, with a one-to-three month moratorium depending on the
nature of the project.

The maximum period is up to 24 months, which is normally applicable to new projects such as tractor purchase and operation, pineapple cultivation, piggery, as well as institutional lending for the purpose of on-lending or retailing to end-users.

Disbursement of MASLOC loans is done through participating financial institutions and there are currently nine banking groups in partnership with the centre to disbursed and recover loans from clients.

Source: GNA