Kosi Yankey-Ayeh – Executive Director of NBSSI
THE NATIONAL Board for Small Scale Industries (NBSSI) will today, officially close down all avenues for applying for NBSSI-Mastercard Foundation Nkosuo programme, a Covid-19 recovery and resilience project aimed at supporting micro small and medium enterprises (MSME).
The economic downturn in the country as a result of the coronavirus pandemic led the NBSSI to partner the Mastercard Foundation to provide financial assistance in the form of soft loans and grants to eligible Ghanaian-owned enterprises in both the formal and informal sectors of the economy.
This is to be done via banks, financial technology companies, mobile lenders, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and business development services with the condition of a one-year moratorium and a two-year repayment period.
Speaking in an interview with DAILY GUIDE, the Public Relations Coordinator of NBSSI, Keskine Owusu Poku, appealed to successful applicants to exercise patience as NBSSI worked to evaluate and validate applications it had received.
As at October 6, 2020, some 60,000 applications were reported to have been received by the NBSSI across the country.
He said “no one can influence the evaluation process” and for that reason appealed to MSME to resist the temptation of paying monies to person who might claim to have ‘links’ to facilitate evaluation of their applications for disbursement.
The NBSSI, he said, was working hard to partner other financial institutions for future stimulus projects so as to provide support to MSMEs who could not apply for the current package.
He appealed to beneficiaries of other stimulus packages to do well to timely honour their financial obligations on time so as to enable the board set up a revolving fund to assist other businesses in the near future.
By Issah Mohammed