He said, there were a lot of activities going on under scheme and it had attracted young people to go into manufacturing business, while another 35 factories were going through credit appraisal.

President Akufo-Addo who was presenting the State of the Nation Address (SoNA) in Parliament said Under the Rural Enterprises Programme, funded by the African Development Bank and the International Fund for Agricultural Development, 50 small-scale processing factories would be established by the end of the year in 50 districts across the country.

These, he said would be constructed in areas, where there were evidence of significant post-harvest losses, to be owned and managed by organised youth groups, with technical support from the Ministry of Trade and Industry.

The President said, small and medium scale enterprises formed the base of businesses in the country, and financing had been the bane of their operations and that was why MASLOC was established in 2006 to meet a critical need by providing the type of small-scale loans needed by these small-scale enterprises at reasonable rates.

Sadly, he said MASLOC was undermined by base political considerations and endemic corruption, and the centre was almost run down completely.   ‘’I am glad to report that MASLOC has been revamped, and is getting back to do what it was set up to do. There has been strict adherence to credit procedures and prudent management of the credit recovery process. These have resulted in a recovery rate of 89 per cent of loans administered under a pilot scheme introduced in 2017’’.

The President said, MASLOC was given an amount of GH¢35 million in October 2018 for disbursement, the first time an amount of such magnitude was given to the Centre outside of an election year.

Out of the total amount, he said, the Centre disbursed GH¢20,563,100 million, with GH¢14,317,200 million to be disbursed for approved pending applications.

 He said so far, 87 per cent of the money was disbursed to  24, 582 women.

“The 2016 NPP Manifesto promised to allocate 50 per cent of MASLOC funds to women, and we have surpassed this promise.

‘’It has obviously been noticed that interesting things are happening at the successfully restructured MASLOC, and that is why the Centre was allocated an amount of GH¢ 200 million in the 2019 budget. Such an amount is unprecedented in the history of MASLOC’’. In 2019, MASLOC will give increased attention to youth start-up businesses in vegetable farming, poultry, piggery and fish farming”. He added.

He said the incidence of bad governance methods that almost collapsed MASLOC affected the running of many businesses generally and the financial sector in particular, thereby throwing the banking sector through what can only be described as a traumatic upheaval.