Minister of Finance Mangala Samaraweera, who is in Jaffna for the Enterprise Sri Lanka National Exhibition, held a series of meetings with war affected people to help them to make use of opportunities presented under the Enterprise Sri Lanka credit scheme to obtain loans, the Finance Ministry said in a statement today.
In the morning, he met war widows and small and medium scale entrepreneurs' associations at the Jaffna Kachcheri.
He also held a separate meeting with the former combatants who had been rehabilitated at the Jaffna Kachcheri. Secretary to Ministry of Finance Mr. R.H.S. Samaratunga and the Jaffna District Secretary N.Vedanayagam were also associated with the minister at this discussion.
The Minister announced at this meeting that the government has decided to offer interest subsidized loans upto 1.5 million rupees under the Enterprise Sri Lanka loan scheme without obtaining collateral. So he said that there is no need for the women of the war widows association and the ex-combatants to look for two surety guarantees.
Samaraweera emphasized that the government was mindful of the hardships faced by the people in the North during the last thirty years and under the hardships faced by the women led families.
"Let bygones be bygones. We are here to lift your livelihoods by giving you interest subsidized loans," declared the Minister.
Samaraweera also said that the Cabinet of Ministers have approved a proposal to pay a monthly allowance of Rs 6000 to each family of missing persons. He instructed the members of the missing persons to obtain the Certificate of Absence (CoA) in the name of their missing persons from the Office of Missing Persons (OMP) after which they would receive a payment to be paid from November 01.
Earlier, these women and the ex-combatants apprised the Finance Minister of the social hardships and stigma they face with regards to obtaining guarantors for their loans.
On the instructions of the Minister Samaraweera, the Jaffna GA is to arrange a two day workshop on coming Friday and Saturday to help and train the prospective entrepreneurs to prepare there proposals that are to be submitted to the banks, the Finance Ministry said.
The Northern Province area managers of State banks who were present at this meeting agreed to send in there representatives to make their proposals viable for them to obtain loans.
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