The Chief Executive Officer of MASLOC, Abibata S.M Zakariah, says the scheme is unsustainable unless the recovery rate of loan facilities significantly improves.

She, thus, has sent an appeal to all loan defaulters to pay back their debts.

She was speaking on the Super Morning Show, on Wednesday, February 23, 2022, where she bemoaned the poor recovery rate of loans granted by her outfit. She indicated that only 45% of loans disbursed across the country have been recovered.

“In the past few days, I’ve been going around the southern sector and my worry has been low recovery rate. Out of the GH₵204 million disbursed, we have been able to collect GH₵90 million, which is about 45%. But any meaningful microfinance institution should be doing around 80% recovery,” she said.

She attributed this development to a perception held by some defaulters that the loans are free, hence their decision not to repay.

She also attributed the development to some failures on the part of the institution, which she said she is ready to work towards improving, as the new CEO.

"On our part, we failed to do [certain things] as an institution in the past. In the past, the monitoring hasn't been as good as it should be. We could have monitored, we also didn't follow other processes, which includes, education in terms of financial literacy, record-keeping, before the disbursement," she said.

She stated that the institution is working towards improving on its shortfalls by rolling out new measures, including its drive to digilitise the institution.

In addition to this, she indicated that MASLOC will improve on training, capacity building, etc.”

“We have to also intensify our monitoring, we have to intensify our education, sensitisation, intensify visits we pay to our clients, Regional Managers will also be given targets and staff will also be motivated to give off their best, and I believe these, if implemented, will clearly give us the best results,” she said.