Mampong (Ash), Oct 20, GNA - The Sekyere West District Assembly (SWDA) said on Monday that it was ready with 500 million cedis from the Poverty Reduction Fund to disburse to women. Mr Samuel Okyere Kusi-Appiah, District Coordinating Director, said only women who have started their own ventures would benefit from the fund.

Addressing the closing session of a 10-day entrepreneurial workshop on tie and dye and the preparation of soap and pomade at Asante-Mampong he said the decision was based on experience.

Mr Kusi-Appiah said experience had shown that most women, who had not established ventures of their own, used funds allocated to them on frivolous things instead of the intended purpose.

The workshop was attended by 47 women from the District and was organised by the Business Advisory Centre (BAC) of the National Board for Small-Scale Industries (NBSSI).

It was designed to equip the women with entrepreneurial skills to enable them to be self-employed.

Mr Kusi-Appiah appealed to those, who had received loans, to pay back promptly to enable their colleagues also to benefit from the facility.

He asked the women to use the knowledge gained at the workshop to set up their own businesses so as to improve upon their economic situation.

Mr Isaac Asare, Head of the BAC, asked the participants to be innovative and produce quality products to enable them to capture the local markets. Nana Oduro Mensah, Worakesehene, expressed satisfaction with the quality of products produced by the participants and asked them to maintain that standard when they started production on their own.