303 Market fire victims to get MASLOC loans
Micro Finance and Small Loans Centre ( MASLOC) is to begin disbursing GH¢430,700 to 303 second-hand clothes dealers who lost their wares during a fire outbreak at the Makola No. 2 Market in Accra early this year.
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The facility would attract an interest of two per cent per annum and is expected to help the traders revive their trading activities.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of MASLOC, Mrs Sedina Tamakloe Attionu, yesterday presented a dummy cheque to the traders in Accra as a symbol of a payout to them. The traders were delighted over the payment and expressed their gratitude to the government.
MASLOC has appointed Adwadifo Adamfo, a micro finance institution, to pay the money on its behalf.
A fire that struck at dawn on March 28, this year, swept through the Makola No. 2 Market, causing serious damage to the second-hand clothes section where about 500 shops and properties, worth thousands of Ghana Cedis, were destroyed.
Many of the victims who have been heartbroken since then, told the Daily Graphic that they had been contemplating how they could restart their businesses.
Growing businesses
Mrs Attionu said the amount, which is a loan, was in line with MASLOC's policy of supporting the needy to grow their legitimate businesses.
She said over the years, MASLOC had supported a number of victims of market fires in Accra and Kumasi.
That, she said, was not to say the centre was just interested in giving out loans, explaining that it would be better if the fires did not occur at all.
Accra mayor
The Metropolitan Chief Executive ( MCE) of Accra, Dr Alfred Okoe Vanderpuye, said the support to the traders was a demonstration of the government’s commitment to the cause of traders in the country.
"We have a government that is ever ready to go to the aid of the needy," he stressed.
The MCE asked traders to be extra careful about their activities in the markets to prevent fire outbreaks.
He disclosed that the government had given the approval for the modernisation of 13 markets in Accra. Among them are Salaga, Kasoa Junction, London and Mallam Atta.
Designs for the projects, he said, were ongoing, and the completion of the projects would help address the perennial fires in Accra markets.
Dr Vanderpuye advised the traders to keep clean environment in a bid to address the cholera epidemic in the capital city.
The Deputy Greater Accra Regional Minister, Mr Isaac Nii Djanmah Vanderpuye, called on Ghanaians to have faith in the government as it worked to improve the country’s economy.