Microfinance expansion helping rural people save

The National Business

By JAMES GUMUNO
MORE than 200,000 people living in the rural areas throughout the country know how to manage and save their money in banks under the Microfinance Expansion Project.
The project is funded by Asian Development Bank, Australia and national Government, and implemented by Bank of PNG.
It targets more than 70 per cent of rural people who are financially illiterate.
Project manager Jacob Gop said the bottom line was to educate people on saving culture, managing their money and bringing financial services closer to them.
He said this on Friday at Aba village in Hagen Central, Western Highlands, during the closing of a week-long training of trainers course on business development skills.
The participants came from Hela, Enga and Southern Highlands.
Gop said in the phase 1 training on financial literacy, they targeted 50,000 people on savings and bookkeeping, but they exceeded the target to 215,000 nationwide.
He said in the phase 2 of the project on business development skills training, they targeted 15,000.
They have so far trained 12,000 small entrepreneurs with 3000 more to go before the project winds down in June 2019.
Training specialist Sebastian Mugup of Business Development Skills Training said 40 per cent of the targeted 15,000 people must be women.
Her said the modules were:

  • skills and attitudes of an entrepreneurs;
  • quick marketing input;
  • project cost;
  • book-keeping;
  • stock management; and,
  • cash flow planninhg.

Meanwhile, MiBank Hagen manager Ted Vere said the Microfinance Expansion Project was helping rural people open bank accounts.
He said the financial literacy training conducted by church and community-based organisations helped rural people to understand the importance of managing and saving money in bank.
Vere said that after seeing people in rural areas finding it hard to have easy access to the banks, MiBank set up agents in rural areas.
He cited success stories of Tsak Valley in Wapenamenda district of Enga (3000 bank accounts), Banz in Jiwaka (3000 bank accounts) and Western Highlands.