From day one of her appointment as the CEO of The Microfinance and Small Loans Centre (MASLOC) from September 2021, Hajia Abibata Shanni Mahama Zakariah has been on a mission to transform (MASLOC) and strengthen its ability to utilize entrepreneurship and MSME lending as a poverty alleviation tool.
Studies show that the CEO launched a blitz of internal changes that are making tremendous impact on pro-poor and lower income economic empowerment.
From day one of her appointment, Madam Zakariah launched a strategic operational plan to establish a singular operational focus and direction for the organization.
The plan realigned the focus of the organization to center on mostly women, the youth, the physically challenged persons and men.
During this period, the Government’s cost containment measures taken to stabilize the economy exposed the risks of MASLOC’s dependency on Government of Ghana funding.
To address this problem, the CEO successfully negotiated and secured a multi-million-dollar injection of funds from the African Development Bank (AfDB) to help fund MSME loans across Ghana as well as enhancing the digitalization drive of MASLOC.
Our sources also revealed that the CEO is also currently in negotiations with other international agencies for additional MSME loan funding for Ghana through MASLOC.
In the span of one year the CEO has also successfully completed the MASLOC digitalization project with nationwide training starting in the third quarter of this year.
Recently, the CEO and her team have increased the thresholds of group loan amounts from GHS 1,000 to GHS 5,000 depending on the type of trade as well as promoting the ease to access loans by making the required documentation flexible and relaxed.
Last weekend, MASLOC successfully disbursed 1.7million GHS in loans to over 1000 beneficiaries in Ashanti Region. In the coming weeks, we will see more disbursements across the country.
The CEO will soon announce modalities for MSMEs to access the Multi-Million AfDB loan facility. In these challenging global economic times, the team at MASLOC and their CEO are keeping the hopes of MSMEs and economic empowerment for the pro-poor alive.
