Accra, Sept. 6, GNA - Small and medium-scale businesses on Wednesday received a boost with the launch of a 50 million-dollar Micro Credit Fund from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as seed money for disbursement to grassroots business operators.

Aimed to create jobs and reduce poverty, the facility is to be disbursed under the Micro Credit Fund through the banks as part of efforts by the Government to make small and medium-scale financing available to the informal sector.

Beneficiaries of existing credit facilities, such as the Women's Development Fund, exhibited their excitement at the launch of the new Fund by President John Agyekum Kufuor in Accra. Women's groups in colourful attire sang and shouted slogans on the benefit of such facilities for them.

The President also inaugurated the offices of the Micro Finance and Small Loans Centre (MASLOC) to facilitate the disbursement and management of the Fund.

The beneficiaries of the Micro Credit Fund include petty traders, caterers, and textile and garment dealers, weavers, artisans, hairdressers and beauticians and mechanics whose groups can access between 250,000 cedis and 150 million cedis.

Hajia Alima Mahama, Minister of Women and Children's Affairs, said such micro credit facilities served as tool and a mechanism for job and wealth creation and also for skills development.

Giving the benefits of the funds already disbursed under similar credit facilities, she said the Women's Development Fund had disbursed about 17 billion cedis to 17,000 women this year.

Since its establishment in 2002, the Women's Development Fund had disbursed 124 billion cedis out of which 100 billion cedis was from the Government's coffers, 14 billion cedis from the Japanese Government and 10 billion cedis as leverages from the banks.

These Funds, she said, were given to about 209,371 women to empower them to cater for their dependants.

Aside this, beneficiaries have been introduced to the banking system as a way of inculcating into them savings habits. The Minister said this had enhanced recovery efforts to about 60 per cent. However, some beneficiary groups in the New Edubiase District, Sunyani, Nungua and the Osu areas had registered excellent performance of 100 per cent recovery.

Mr Dauoda Toure, Resident Coordinator of the United Nations Systems in Ghana, said the country's efforts to provide micro-credit financing to the poor formed part of efforts to half poverty by 2015 as enshrined in the targets of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). He said the provision of support must enable the poor to live on their own efforts in order for them to be less dependent and be able to contribute to nation building. This, he said, was possible because the provision of credit was linked to development.

Sheikh Ibrahim Cudjoe Quaye, Greater Accra Regional Minister, associated poverty among the rural folks to low technology and investments saying that the Micro Credit Fund sought to improve access to credit.

Managers of the Fund said regional offices of the MASLOC would be established in the next few weeks to ensure that the facility was brought to the doorsteps of beneficiaries. 06 Sept. 06