The Management of ProCredit has denied media reports that a woman was detained because of her husband's failure to pay a loan he took from the company.

It said the reports were false and unsubstantiated.

The company "is shocked by the high level of falsity in news items headlined “Wife, 36, detained over hubby’s loan” as reported in Monday 15th September, 2008 edition of the Daily Graphic.

ProCredit insisted that neither the woman, Mrs. Veronica Eklu, nor her two children were detained by officials at the ProCredit Tema Branch.

It explained that the lady's husband, Mr. Bernard Eklu had claimed ownership of a business owned by a gentleman named Francis and had used the said Francis’ business to acquire a loan from the Tema branch.

But the fraud in the deal came to light on routine monitoring visits to the clients’, Bernard Eklu, supposed business premises.

According to ProCredit, the credit officer assigned to the client visited Mr. Eklu’s residence on some occasions only to be told by Mrs. Eklu that her husband was unavailable.

Following that the credit officer informed Francis that aa report would be loged against Mrs Eklu because she had winessed for her husband that Francis'business indeed belonged to her husband.

But Francis assured the credit officer he would come to the ProCredit office with Mrs Eklu to try and resolve the issue.

"On Thursday, 11th September 2008, Francis and Mrs. Eklu came to the company’s premises on their own volition and not at the invitation of ProCredit" to try and settle the matter.

While there, Francis told Mrs Eklu to wait for him so he could go out and bring the money for the settlement.

"It is important to emphasize that this agreement was between Francis and Mrs. Eklu. The credit officer and the credit coordinator went back to perform their duties and Mrs. Eklu remained in the meeting room. The meeting room was neither locked nor under surveillance," the company emphasised.

It said while away, Francis called the credit officer three times and asked her to tell Mrs. Eklu to wait for him because he was mobilizing funds and would return with the money shortly.

"Francis later returned to the branch in the company of one Mr. Frank Agyemang, who is alleged to be the brother in law of Mrs. Eklu, with the children of Mrs. Eklu and other members of the family who had no prior understanding of the circumstances to hurl insults at staff of the branch and to claim that officials at the branch had detained," Veronica.

"It is important to note that officials of the branch did not go to Mrs. Eklu’s house to forcibly take custody of her and lock her up in the board room from 3pm to 8 pm.

"We believe the story was just made up to attract cheap public sympathy at a time it became clear to the other parties that the company may involve the police to handle the case because of its fraudulent nature," ProCredit stressed.


story by Malik Abass Daabu