Parliament to discuss Credit Union Bill

Agona Swedru, April 18, GNA - Parliament is soon to pass a draft credit union bill to help strengthen the managerial base of credit schemes in the country, Mr John Kwesi Agyabeng, Member of Parliament (MP) for Agona East announced at the weekend.

He said the passage of the bill would go a long way to improve the informal financial sector to play a crucial role in providing income incentives and create direct employment.

Speaking at the 35th Biennial General Meeting of the Swedru Teachers' Credit Union at Agona Swedru, Mr Agyabeng said the government was committed to improving the investment atmosphere for the growth of small and medium enterprises through access to financial information. Mr Agyabeng, who is also the Acting District Chief Executive for Agona stressed that the government had placed importance on improving the credit industry outside the formal banking sector where lending terms were less cumbersome and flexible.

The MP said interventions created by the government were to encourage the non-banking institutions to support public sector employees to undertake business ventures instead of relying solely on government.

He urged credit unions to be more proactive and adopt economic strategies to meet current global developments forces of liberalization and free market.

Mr F.A. Ayisi, Field Manager of the Credit Union Association (CUA) in the Central Region, urged the managers of credit union to develop more products and services as possible and set up effective marketing strategies to reach out to the entire membership.

Mr John A. d'Almeida, Chairman of the board of the directors of the Union said the society granted loans totalling 1.8 billion cedis to members last year.

He announced that the Union made profit of 391 million cedis during the year as against 194 million cedis the previous year. Mr d'Almeida said the Union was constructing an office complex at a total cost of 2.6 billion cedis.

He stated that the union had developed a new product to alleviate severe financial burden of the members known as "Fast Tack Loan" similar to overdraft facility at the banks and urged them to patronise the facility.