The National Board for Small Scale Industries (NBSSI) Executive Director Kosi Yankey-Ayeh, has said 102,361 applicants have benefited from the GH¢1 billion stimulus package.

According to the Executive Director, more applicants will also benefit from the package soon.

This comes after the government in April,2020  announced that, it would roll out a GH¢600 million stimulus packaged targeted at Small and Medium Scale Enterprises.

The partner banks are supporting the fund with additional GH¢400 million, bringing the total amount targeted at small businesses to GH¢1 billion.

The facility is being managed by the National Board for Small Scale Industries (NBSSI) and has KPMG as its technical partner.

According to NBSSI, beneficiaries of the facility would pay an interest of three percent.

Kosi Yankey Ayeh said the funds were disbursed using two models which was the Adom Loan Scheme and the Anidasuwuo loan scheme.

The Adom Loan Scheme went out to micro-segment businesses whereas the Anidasuwuo loan scheme went out to those needing more than GH¢300,000 to sustain their businesses.

According to Kosi Yankey-Ayeh, this was done to help the Board roll out the funds quickly to applicants.

“So to be able to disburse quickly and to be able to get a grip of what has happened because we had a lot of applications coming in, we decided to put a system in place to be able to do these disbursements,we started with the Adom applicants and also initiated the Anidasuwuo applicants which would also roll out quickly, and with the Adom based on the numbers and the requests we were able to roll out the 102,361 applicants,” she said.

In May,2020 the Executive Director ,Kosi Ayeh Yankey stated that, more than 200,000 businesses would be supported under the coronavirus (COVID-19) stimulus package for SMEs adding that the NBSSI was further engaging traders and business owners to sensitize them on the package and how they could access it.

Paa Kweku Eshun  Talksafrica.com