MANYA BANK, DANIDA ASSIST MARKET WOMEN (PAGE 20)

Story: A. Kofoya-Tetteh, Koforidua

THE Manya Krobo Rural Bank in collaboration with the Danish Development Agency (DANIDA) has provided a small-scale credit ranging between GH¢100 and GH¢1,000 to market women and operators of small-scale industries in the catchment areas of the bank.
The loans were to enable the beneficiaries to improve on their trading and business enterprises, to generate income for their sustenance and to reduce poverty.
To ensure that the beneficiaries make good use of the facility, the bank has undertaken an outreach programme on the issue at the Agormanya Market and at Kpong where a considerable number of the women were schooled on the facility.
The programme coincided with the visit to the area by the Chairman of DANIDA, Mr Klaus Bustrup, who took the opportunity to assure the beneficiaries of DANIDA’s continued support.
Addressing the women at Kpong just before he visited a commercial mango farm, near Juapong, one of the catchment areas of the bank where a number of people had benefited from the micro-credit scheme, Mr Bustrup expressed his satisfaction at the manner the Manya Krobo Rural Bank was handling the scheme.
He expressed the hope that it would go a long way to improve the lot of the people.
The leader of the group of beneficiaries at Kpong, Madam Manye Maku, said over the past two years, the Manya Krobo Rural Bank had supported the 500-member group with GH¢70,000.
She indicated that the financial assistance had enabled them to improve their businesses to support their families, especially the education of their children.
Madam Maku said the association would be roping in 3,000 women and appealed to DANIDA to give them more loans to enable them to come out of poverty.
Throwing more light on the micro-small scale (MSE’s) credit scheme, the Managing Director of the Manya Krobo Rural Bank, Mr Emmanuel Antwi, said the bank in collaboration with the Support Programme for Enterprise and Empowerment (SPEED), an initiative funded jointly by DANIDA, the government and German Technical Co-operation (GTZ), had provided funds for the scheme through the bank.
He said about GH¢1 million would be disbursed to the MSEs and that the bank had also proposed to partner DANIDA and other companies in Denmark to go into mango processing and related businesses in the bank’s catchment areas.