MASLOC credit finance for agro-processing

THE government is to source a GH¢20,000 loan facility from the Microfinance and Small Loan Centre (MASLOC) on behalf of 30 youth who underwent training in agro-processing under the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP).
The facility is to enable them to set up their own businesses in the production of fruit juice and other local beverages in commercial quantities to satisfy the local market.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is also providing support for the project in the quest to scale up training for the trades and vocation module under which the training programme falls.
The project is being implemented on a pilot basis in eight districts and will be expanded to cover other parts of the country in due course.
The Minister of Manpower, Youth and Employment, Nana Akomea, made this known to the Daily Graphic after he had paid a familiarisation visit to the youth at their training site at Weija. He was impressed with the skills the youth were able to acquire within the relatively short period of training.
He expressed the hope that having acquired skills in the production of beverages such as pito (a locally brewed beer), fruit juice, asana and nmeda (kinds of local drinks), palm wine, among others, which came with bottling, they could produce in increased quantities to feed the local market.
He noted that local production of fruit juice in the country constituted less than 40 per cent, since a greater percentage of those consumed were imported, and that the inclusion of local beverages into the line of training was intended to commercialise such products in the country.
Nana Akomea said given the seasonality associated with agro-processing, the inclusion to train the youth in the production of the local beverages was an added advantage to engage them all year round.
A food scientist, Mr Eric William Ampadu, who facilitated the training, later told the Daily Graphic that the beneficiaries, with the kind of equipment at their disposal, would have the capacity to produce more than 100 crates of carbonated drink on a daily basis.