Dormaa credit union doing well, but faces loan repayment issues

Dormaa-Ahenkro (B/A) Jan. 13, GNA - Members of The Dormaa Chance Brothers Co-operative Credit Union bought shares totalling GHC 18,741 last year and increased its membership by 192. Mr. Albright Opoku Kyeremeh, acting manager, announced this at the swearing in of a reconstituted a seven-member Board of Directors that would steer the affairs of the union for the next six years. The new board members headed by Mrs. Susana Opoku Kyeremeh were sworn into office at the union's 37th annual general meeting at Dormaa-Ahenkro.

Mr. Kyeremeh said due to its prudent managerial and fiscal policies, the Credit Union Association of Ghana had selected the union as one of three in Brong-Ahafo to benefit from a coaching programme to be facilitated by Credit Union experts from the Canadian Cooperative Association this month. Members of the union, he said, also took loans amounting to GHC 198,900 in 2008.

The acting manager, however, said a major challenge confronting the union was the 'lackadaisical' attitude towards the repayment of loans.

He explain that some loan defaulters who were prosecuted but given a second chance by the court to pay the loans again defaulted and the union had exploited other avenues to get them to settle the loans with accumulated interest. Members of good standing upheld the management's decision to coerce defaulters to pay back the loans to enable others to benefit. They appealed to the union's loan committee to scrutinize all subsequent loan applications to ensure that beneficiaries were credit worthy. The total membership of the Union is 1,176.