The newly appointed Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Microfinance and Small Loans Centre (MASLOC), Abigail Elorm Mensah, has pledged to improve the recovery rate of the centre's loans.

She said from the present recovery rate of 51 per cent, she intended to take it higher to enable the government to recoup the funds.

“I am told the current recovery rate is around 51 per cent. So, we want to take it higher. The more the money is gotten back, the more other people will also benefit from it,” Ms Mensah added.

She made the pledge after officially taking over as the new head of MASLOC in Accra on Monday, February 17.

At the ceremony were some friends and family members, the outgoing CEO of MASLOC, Hajia Abibata Shanni Mahama Zakariah, and the Managing Director of SICLife Insurance, Solomon Twum Barima.

She said as part of measures to ensure compliance, plans and strategies would be put in place such that people would benefit from the loans they took.

Ms Mensah said her administration would leverage digitalisation to ensure its operations became paperless to achieve its objectives.

“If you want to apply for a MASLOC facility, you would not have to journey all the way to get it. You would be in the comfort of your home and be able to access the facility,” she said.

Responding to a question on where she wants to take MASLOC during her tenure, Ms Mensah said: “Obviously, whoever takes over from somebody, the person will want to do better than the predecessor, and so I want to move the institution further than it was, and the goal is to take MASLOC higher.”

“For now, I am taking the word of my predecessor that she has left a viable MASLOC. So we are praying and hoping that we can build on the viable MASLOC she has left to make it a better MASLOC,” she added.

Ms Mensah further said that supporting women farmers and creating a market for them to sell their produce would be one of her major priorities.

That, she said, would enable farmers to realise the benefit of the loans to enable them to pay back on time.

On corruption, the new CEO said she had taken cognisance of past stories about MASLOC, but “my story will be different”.

Ms Mensah, however, called for discipline and cooperation of staff to ensure that those who were supposed to benefit from MASLOC did so without stress.