300 firms to be tried over BAF loan

More than 300 companies and business establishments are to be prosecuted for their refusal to pay back loans of nearly 7 billion cedis they took from the Business Assistance Fund (BAF).

Currently, the Attorney-General’s Department is compiling the list and would soon have it published before taking the defaulters to court to recover the loans.

The BAF was set up by the previous government to save distressed companies from collapse.

The Minister for Trade and Industry, dr. Kofi Konadu Apraku who disclosed the government’s stand in Accra said so far, the government had retrieved about 2 billion cedis from other defaulters.

According to Dr. Apraku, the BAF was established with the seed money of 10 billion cedis to provide assistance to companies and business institutions, which were in serious financial crisis and therefore needed loans to survive.

The monies, he said were accordingly disbursed to these business establishments but the beneficiaries had refused to pay the loans which would have gone to assist other interested establishments facing similar problems.

“When we took over, the funds had depleted leaving roughly 3 billion cedis while the 7 billion cedis was out there in the hands of people who did not care to pay back what they took,” the Minister said.

Some of the beneficiaries were well established, Dr. Apraku said the money belonged to the state and was meant for a purpose pointing out further that government would do all it could to retrieve these monies, with the option of publishing the names of the defaulters for Ghanaians to know them before taking them to court.

Earlier the Minister announced that the government was making available about 40 billion cedis as seed money for the EDIF and hoped that the money would reach the target of 60 billion cedis by the end of the year.

He explained that the President’s pronouncement on the Golden Age of Business was a reality and not a mirage. “It is in this spirit the Export Development and Investment has been established.”

This fund seeks to make available financial resources for development and promotion of Ghana’s export trade.