‘Lower Interest Rate On Loans’

The National President of Ghana Association of Business Education Teachers (GABET), Gordon Osei Marfo, has appealed to micro-finance institutions in the country to lower their interest rates on loans so that their customers may not eventually become poorer than they were.
He also commended them for their vital role in the country’s development and said a visit to some micro-finance institutions showed that many applicants especially parents queued up for loans to pay their wards’ school fees and also inject some of the money into their businesses.
Mr. Marfo, who was speaking at the 21^st Conference of GABET in Sunyani, further called on the Central Bank to put in place mechanisms for detecting unregistered micro-financial institutions and getting them either to regularize their operations or shut down.
“This in my opinion will help eliminate or at least reduce fraud on unsuspecting public,” he added.
The GABET President expressed worry over the refusal of public nursing training schools to admit business students who seek admission at their institutions and commended some private nursing schools for going all out to admit their students.
Mr. Marfo, who is also the assistant headmaster of Twene Amanfo Senior High Technical Institute (TASTECH) in Sunyani, called on his colleagues to encourage their students to read cost accounting, as students who intend reading accountancy, auditing, taxation, financial management and other related business programmes should have knowledge in cost accounting.
Speaking on judgment debts, the President of GABET expressed worry over the many judgment debts and admonished the government to prosecute offenders after ordering them to pay the money.
“Additionally government officials who through omission or commission or negligence bring about such debts should be brought to book,” he opined.
The guest speaker at the GABET five-day conference and workshop under the theme “The Growth of microfinance industry and its impact on the economy”, Dr. Yaw Gyimah-Larbi, Assistant Director, Banking Supervision Department, said the theme for the conference was timely considering the fact that most stakeholders in the microfinance industry seemed to have been taken by surprise with the recent proliferation of microfinance institutions all over the country.
“The role of microfinance institutions in ensuring credit availability to the economically poor people and small entrepreneurs is critical in the sustainability of growth in the poor and emerging economies such as ours,” he added.
He said due to the influx of the microfinance institutions in the country, the Bank of Ghana would be publishing licensed micro-finance institutions in the dailies soon and advised people to go on their website and check the licensed ones before dealing with them.
He also mentioned that the Bank of Ghana intends to constantly monitor and review the business environment and enact laws or issue out relevant guidelines that would ensure stakeholder satisfaction thereby enabling the micro finance sector to remain vibrant and sustainable.
From Vivianna Mensah, Sunyani