MASLOC holds financial literacy training for women
Two hundred members of the Nakom Women Association in the Pusiga District of the Upper East Region have completed a two-day training on basic financial literacy with a call on them to cultivate the habit of documenting all their business transactions to keep track of their income and expenditure records.
The workshop, which was organised by the Microfinance and Small Loans Centre (MASLOC), formed part of the organisation's 2015 operational goals to embark on capacity-building programmes for its clients and potential beneficiaries who are mainly in the informal sector.
The primary objective was to help improve on the recovery rate of MASLOC's credit portfolio through such training workshops.
The 200 women, who were selected from 10 communities within the Nakom area, are expected to also train their remaining colleagues numbering about 1,000 within the association.
They were schooled on basic record keeping for businesses, managing credit and collections, managing cash flows, determining profit and loss, understanding profit and cash as well as how to manage their businesses effectively.
The facilitators used images to illustrate the various topics, while introducing interaction and group discussions among the women for better understanding of the topics.
In a speech read on her behalf by Ms Esther Adjovi Agbeko, Head of Human Resource, MASLOC, the Chief Executive of the organisation, Mrs Sedina Tamakloe Attionu, stated that the success of entrepreneurs or business owners was largely linked to their knowledge of financial management.
"No matter how skilled an entrepreneur or business owner is at creating a product, providing a service or marketing his or her wares, the money he or she earns will slip between his or her fingers if he or she does not know how to efficiently collect it, keep track of it, save it, spend or invest it," Mrs Attionu observed.
She pointed out that failure of businesses resulted in business owners’ inability to meet financial obligations, especially to their respective bankers and financiers.
Mrs Attionu indicated that financial literacy was "imperative to making sound business decisions in an environment where financial services are often handled in-house".
"Therefore the success or failure of a small business in its early stages is often dependent on the financial capability of the enterprise's leadership," she emphasised.
She intimated that the success or failure of MASLOC's clients had a direct impact on the sustainability of the centre.
Messrs Dominic Francis Kpodovia and Dominic K. Geyevu, management consultant and resource person respectively, told the women that money from MASLOC was not free, hence they needed to be put to good use and accounted for properly.
They advised the women to keep records of their income and expenditure as well as other business transactions, stressing that "you should not keep financial records in your head, you must always document them".
The President of the Nakom Women's Association, Madam Salifu Fatima, expressed gratitude to MASLOC for the training, saying that "we welcome any skills training programme, advice and ideas that can help improve on the way we do things to enhance our living conditions".
She expressed optimism that the training would help them to create wealth, reduce poverty, empower themselves, help the youth in the area to grow and to realise their full potential.
Madam Salifu indicated, however, that the women at Nakom, which is predominantly a farming community, were unable to have access to land for farming purposes and credit facilities to go into farming and other businesses.
She emphasised that with the right support, they were prepared to engage in onion farming, parboiling of rice, soap making, bakery, batik, tie dye and other small-scale businesses.
Early on, the MASLOC team had called on the Chief of Nakom, Naba Apambilla Mohammed, who stressed the need for future programmes by MASLOC to be designed to include men, who also needed to be trained and given financial support.
