Disbursement of coronavirus stimulus package to begin second week of June – NBSSI

Government is set to begin the disbursement of the Covid-19 stimulus package by the end of the second week of June.

This comes after more than 100,000 applications were tendered by business owners and entrepreneurs, following the launch of programme.

The package was instituted by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to alleviate the plight of businesses negatively impacted by the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Executive Director of the National Board for Small Scale Industry, Kosi Yankey-Ayeh made the disclosure to the media on June 4, 2020.

She explained that the modality will be guided by technology to effectively streamline the process.

“With all other things being equal we are hoping to start disbursing potentially from the end of next week… most importantly, it will be communicated to the persons. The whole process is via technology. So even if you apply on paper – which we allow- it will go into the technology into the IT platform. Once it’s on that platform we will do as much as possible for the technology, based on the assumptions in place to decide if it meets the criteria”

Kosi Yankey-Ayeh also revealed that the disbursement to Small and Medium Scale Enterprises will come to an end on June 20, 2020.

“We have decided that there will be a timeline for closing. So 20th of June is what we have set for now… So we are not hoping to cap it based on the number but we are caping it based on the date,” she said.

She also emphasized that efforts will be put in place to ensure that human resource strength will be maintained in these beneficiary businesses post-COVID-19.

Executive Director of the National Board for Small Scale Industries on May 7, 2020, revealed that about two hundred thousand small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) are expected to benefit from loans from the GHc600 million government stimulus package.