Agriculture bank issues 5bn/- loans to 22,000 small farmers

 

TANZANIA Agricultural Development Bank (TADB) has issued 5bn/- loans as of October 31, 2016, with 21,526 small scale farmers benefiting.

Finance and Planning Minister, Dr Philip Mpango, told the National Assembly here yesterday that the government is determined to bring the bank services from the zonal officers closer to the needy in rural and remote areas. 

 

However, he said, currently they are working on empowering and building capacity for the bank management and increase its capital before opening up offices in regions and districts.

Dr Mpango told the house that today they are meeting with the Africa Development bank over a soft loans negotiation in which they want to beef up the bank capital to own land and have enough capital to run their operations.

He said the negotiations will centre on the 150bn/- for land ownership and 75bn/- running capital, with more farmers set to benefit from the loan facilities. 

The minister said that the small scale farmers who have benefitted so far are from Iringa, Morogoro and Tanga.

He was responding to supplementary questions by Ms Esther Bulaya (Bunda-Chadema) and Laurencia Bukwimba (Busanda-CCM) who questioned on the strategies the bank has to reach majority in rural areas, claiming that small scale farmers have not benefitted from the facility.

Dr Mpango said 89 small scale farmer groups who acquired the loans, will repay back between in two to five years and five to 15 years, depending on the amount of loan they secured. He expressed the government commitment to ensure that the services go closer to farmers to reduce cost for them to access loans at zonal level.

The main question was asked by Rose Kamili (Special Seats- Chadema) on why the government has given the bank 60bn/- while the budget has since 2011/12 been allocating 100bn/- as running capital, bringing to 500bn/- the accumulated capital as of the 2015/16 fiscal year.

Responding, the Deputy Minister for agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, Mr William Ole Nasha said the government in this year’s budget has set aside 200bn/- and is planning to ensure it has enough capital through the non cash bond worth 800bn/- to be paid in six years.