GH¢600 million stimulus loan application portal to be launched soon - NBSSI

As part of intervention measures put in place by the government of Ghana to mitigate the scourge of the Novel Coronavirus on Small and Medium scale businesses across the country, a portal for accessing GH¢600 million soft loan facilities would be launched for application process to begin, Executive Director of NBSSI has said.

This is in line with President Akufo-Addo’s promise to support SMEs who have been hardly hit by the coronavirus outbreak.

“Government, in collaboration with the National Board for Small Scale Industries (NBSSI), Business & Trade Associations and selected Commercial and Rural Banks, will roll out a soft loan scheme up to a total of six hundred million cedis (GH¢600 million), which will have a one-year moratorium and two-year repayment period for micro, small and medium scale businesses,” the president is quoted to have said in an address to the nation.

While addressing modalities of distribution of the loan facility at the Minister’s press briefing, May 7, 2020, Executive Director of the National Board for Small Scale Industries (NBSSI) Kosi Yankey-Ayeh said businesses which will be interested in benefitting from the soft loans would have to apply through a technological portal which is yet to be launched.

Addressing concerns about delays in releasing the app, Kosi Yankey-Ayeh said her outfit is currently running stress tests on the portal to prove its viability against possible pressure.

She said other small businesses who would not be privy to technological innovations would also be considered in designing the portal.

Kosi Yankey-Ayeh allayed fears of discrimination as regards to who can access the available soft loan scheme and who gets funding.

In this regard, she further indicated that the three main categories of businesses across the country will be targeted; “also looking at the statistics of the micro, small and medium enterprises, there’re three categories we’re looking at; The micro which makes up about 90 per cent of the population in terms of the sector for the small we have about 15 per cent and the medium enterprises we have about 1 per cent of the sector…”

Kosi Yankey-Ayeh believes based on their analysis the disbursement of the funds will be fully representative of the entire sector.