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The Micro Finance and Small Loans Centre (MASLOC) has presented tricycles to selected youth in the Northern Region to be used as taxis to help reduce transportation difficulties in the Tamale Metropolis. The beneficiaries are required to pay for the tricycles within a four-year period. The Chief Executive Officer of MASLOC, Mrs Sedina Tamakloe Attionu, who presented the tricycles in Tamale, said the scheme was aimed at empowering the people by giving them credits to fund their businesses as part of measures to create jobs in the transport industry. Repay loans She advised the beneficiaries to work hard to repay the loans on time as the 48 months for the repayment was enough. Mrs Attionu indicated that many other people had also been supported with taxi cabs and tractors to boost their economic ventures. She observed that it was the responsibility of the government to create employment for the people, hence the initiative to reduce dependency on the society. The Northern Regional Minister, Alhaji Limuna Mohammed-Muniru, commended MASLOC for the intervention and urged the beneficiaries not to see the gesture as a gift but rather take advantage of it to improve their economic fortunes. Social intervention He said MASLOC was one of the social intervention policies initiated by the government to improve the lives of the vulnerable and urged them to use the opportunity to better their lives. The Northern Regional Manager of MASLOC, Alhaji Mohammed Amin, urged the beneficiaries to work hard to repay the loan to enable others to benefit from the facility. He said the initiative was a pilot project which had started in the Northern Region and that an additional 100 of such tricycles would soon be given to other beneficiaries. The Northern Regional Manager of the National Road Safety Commission, Mr Alexander Ayatah, advised the beneficiaries to abide by the road safety regulations and added that the region recorded 167 deaths through road accidents in 2013. He said 29 persons also died in the first quarter of 2014, and others sustained injuries and stressed that each tricycle was supposed to carry only four persons and therefore urged users to adhere to the number of passengers stipulated.