Training centre for microfinance institutions

The Ghana Association of Microfinance Companies (GAMC), the umbrella body of microfinance institutions in the country, has inaugurated a new training centre complex in Accra, to provide members with the requisite skills that will enable them to meet present challenges confronting the sector.

The training complex, which was put up at a cost of GH¢9,500, comprises three multi-purpose lecture rooms with the capacity to take 100 students at a time, an office and a store room.

The board Chairman of GAMC, Mr Collins Amponsah-Mensah, who inaugurated the facility, was optimistic that as members acquire skills to make them better resourced and to improve on their capacities, the objective of the association to provide opportunities for effective and efficient financial services, for the unbanked sectors of the economy would be achieved.

“Following this, GAMC has also initiated moves towards the establishment of a university that will specialise its courses in banking and finance,” he said.

An official of the Banking Supervision Department of the Bank of Ghana (BoG), Mr D.O. K Owusu, said the sector faced challenges in terms of trained manpower, weak corporate governance structures, poor internal controls and lack of due diligence before loans were granted, among others, and expressed the wish that all training programmes would be made as practicable as possible to improve the sector.

According to the Executive Secretary of GAMC, Mr Richard Amaning, the large inflow of practitioners into the microfinance sector required that the economic area should be regulated to sanitise its operations.

He also said the training modules would be handled by faculty members who are themselves practitioners in the field. “This is to ensure that whatever training is given would not only come from books but also from experience”.

He was of the view that the training would reduce the frequent collapse of microfinance companies.