Masloc assists Makola fire victims

Story: Maxwell Adombila Akalaare

A distance view of the Makola No. 2 market before the fire

SEVENTY-ONE out of the 684 victims of the Makola Number 2 fire disaster have received a total of GH¢99,000 as loans from the MacroFinance and Small Loans Centre (MASLOC) to restart their businesses.
The Public Relations Officer of the MASLOC, Mr Mustapha Abubakar, told the Daily Graphic that GH¢99,000 had so far been distributed to the 71 traders who lost many wares to the inferno two months ago.
The loan, which is as a result of President Mills directive the MASLOC to assist the fire victims to restart their businesses, has an interest rate of 1.5 per cent spread across a maximum repayment period of 12 months.
Per the loan, the executive members of the Makola Number 2 Traders Association are taken as main guarantors to the beneficiaries with individual beneficiaries in a group also serving as guarantors to one another.
According to the PRO, the distribution of the loans was based on a list presented to the MASLOC by the committee that was set up to investigate the cause and the extend of damage caused by the November 18, 2010 inferno.
Mr Abubakar explained that officials of the MASLOC,aided by the leadership of the Makola traders, did an appraisal of what individual traders claimed to have lost when they met with the committee.
The appraisal, he said was meant to “find out how much each of them actually lost and to find out how they are each going to pay back the loans”.
He agreed that the benefiting victims might not be contend with the amount given to them under the initiative but said, “the fact that you lost, say GH¢10,000 does not mean we should give you exactly that amount”.
The government, he added, “is only trying to give them something like a leverage, the amount the individual victim needs to start-up his/her business” after that disastrous inferno.

Prez Atta Mills

Following the fire incident which destroyed wares running into millions of Ghana cedis, President Mills, upon a visit to the market, directed MASLOC to help the victims with loans to restart their businesses.
A five-member committee, which was set up to investigate the incident, later concluded that 650 people were affected with goods estimated at GH¢25 million been destroyed.
As a result, MASLOC contracted UniCredit Ghana Limited, a savings and loans branch of UniBank Ghana Limited located in the market to do the distribution of the money to the assessed victims.
Each of the prospective beneficiaries was thus asked to open an account with the UniCredit or alternatively do same with any bank of choice for the money to be paid into it.
That, according to the PRO, was to forestall any eventuality that could have occurred should the MASLOC officials do the distributions in persons.
At the moment, Mr Abubakar said the second tranch of the disbursement is almost ready and will be available to UniCredit for redistribution in the coming weeks.
He added that a total of 648 of the victims have so far been assessed and was optimistic MASLOC will finish the distribution by the end of this month.
The PRO said the recovery rate of the centre of loans given out in June 2010 was 99.5 per cent and thus, was optimistic the centre will recover all the 1.5 million loan set to be disbursed to the victims.
He further called on the benefiacries to speed up with the repayment to enable others to benefit from the package.
When contacted, Trudy Crabb, Organiser of the Makola traders, said their members had received their money, adding that the group is currently working to ensure that the second batch of the money is released soon.