Kumasi, May 2, GNA- Madam Cecilia Abenaa Dapaah, Minister of State in-charge of Works, Housing and Water Resources, and Member of Parliament (MP) for Bantama, has announced that she has since 2004 sourced for a total loan of about GH¢170,000 to support petty traders, businesswomen and other identifiable women groups in her constituency. The loans, she said, were meant to help the beneficiaries expand their businesses for the improvement of their work and living conditions. Madam Dapaah disclosed this in Kumasi on Friday, when she addressed traders at the Bantama market.

The meeting was to afford the MP the opportunity inform the traders of some measures she was putting in place to address their concerns, especially following a fire outbreak that gutted the market early this year. The cause of that fire, which claimed a life and also destroyed property worth several millions of cedis, is yet to be identified.

The Minister indicated that she had sourced for a GH¢20,000 loan from some banks to be given to the over 150 market women, who were affected during the fire outbreak. She said the loans were designed to serve as seed money to the affected market women to enable them revive their businesses most of which collapsed as a result of the fire, adding that, it behoved on the beneficiaries to take good care of the money. Madam Adwoa Donkor, spokesperson for the market women, thanked the MP for the gesture and said her outfit would meet the beneficiaries to educate them on the proper use of the loans to ensure that they were not misused.