Hohoe, Sept 10, GNA - The government is exploring the possibility of disbursing poverty alleviation facilities through credit unions Schemes, Mr Godfred Adanuti, Field Officer of the Volta Chapter of the Credit Union Association (CUA), has said.

As a prelude, government has started building capacities for all credit unions under its Rural Finance Services Programme (RFSP) to consolidate the gains already chalked nationwide by those Unions. Mr Adanuti was addressing a special general meeting of the Hohoe Community and the Association of Small-Scale Industries (ASSI) Cooperative Union (HOCACCU) at Hohoe on Thursday.

He said government's gesture in that direction arose from CUA's credibility in loan recovery and the injection of professionalism into their operations.

Mr Adanuti said credit unions were competing seriously with the traditional banks in terms of customers and services, which indicated that the future was brighter for the CUA. Mr Paul Kotobridja, the National Board Chairman of CUA, said CUA had its savings soaring to over 314 billion cedis for the 2004 financial up from 55 billion cedis in 2000.

Assets also rose to 348 billion cedis from 63.4 billion cedis, within the same period during which loans granted to members rose from 38 billion cedis to 262 billion cedis. Mr Kotobridja called on the members of the public to embrace the concept of credit unionism to break the vicious cycle of "credit poverty" in the country.

Madam Fortune T. Ebusuasem, Board Chairperson of HOCCACU, said their assets increased to 67 million cedis in 2003-2004 financial year from the previous year's 41 million cedis, representing an increment of 67 per cent.

She urged 170 members of the union to redeem their indebtedness, which was affecting the profit margin and liquidity of the union.