3 to offer assistance to informal sector

Business page (lead) November 22/2008

Story:L Charles Benoni Okine

THE SSNIT Informal Sector (SIS) Fund, a subsidiary of the Social Security and national Insurance Trust, the HFC Bank and the Boafo Microfinance Services Limited, have signed a tripartite agreement to offer attractive microfinance support to workers in the informal sector of the country.
Under the agreement, Boafo Microfinance, which also a subsidiary of HFC Bank will provide microfinance of between Gh¢500 and Gh¢10,000 to employees of the informal sector who are duly registered with the fund and unlike other schemes, will be entitled to a pension at the end of their working.
The signing of the agreement was done by Dr Francis Sapata-Grant, Managing Director of the SIS Fund, Mr Asare Akuffo of the HFC Bank while Mr Michael Osegge, Managing Director of Boafo Microfinance Services initialled for his company.
Dr Sapata-Grant after the signing ceremony said there were about 21,000 people presently registered with the SIS Fund.
There is an estimated 9.5 million constituting 80 per cent of the working population in the informal sector.
He said due to the unique nature of the fund, it is estimated that the number would more than quadruple by 2012.
Dr Sapata-Grant said under the Open Loan Scheme which was one of the products developed under the scheme, a member of the fund will be permitted, based on certain qualifying conditions to use the balance on his or her Occupational Scheme Account to secure a loan from Boafo Microfinance Services Limited for business development and home ownership purposes.
He said it was quite obvious that the business of providing social protection to the Ghanaian worker had assumed a different dimension through this creative and innovative approach.
Mr Akuffo said Ghana had a large informal sector and expressed the hope that through the joint efforts of SSNIT and HFC this large sector would eventually be formalised to provide them with even better services.