Govt to maintain stable microeconomic environment

FATMA ABDU

THE government will apply policy measures to maintain stable microeconomic environment, the Deputy Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance and Planning Ms Amina Hamisi Shaban has said.

She said during the second East Africa Microfinance Summit held in Dar es Salaam yesterday the government was confident that the economy was growing and heading to the right direction.

“The strong economic performance is witnessed on both the number of financial services providers and the financial service products in the country. However, the level of financial inclusion still needs to be broadened further,” she said.

She said that the Bank of Tanzania (BoT) would continue to be vigilant and act appropriately to support stability in the microeconomic environment. She said some measures taken to accelerate access to finance for all citizens include revising the national microfinance policy, licensing of two credit reference firms by the bank of Tanzania to help financial market participants on credit status and serve as alternative collateral.

Others are licensing of specialised microfinance banks by the BoT, putting in place agency banking regulations as a mechanism to promote financial inclusion and the process to table microfinance bill has started. She added that financial institutions and microfinance institutions in particular have a role to play in ensuring financial services and products are available at reasonable terms including fair and practical known your customer (KYC) assessments, the use of alternative collateral and flexible lines of credit.

“To enhance income-generating activities from survival level to strong and viable business in particular for women led enterprises, access to credit, banking and financial services and facilities is essential to fully develop small scale to businesses,” she explained.

However, the Deputy Permanent secretary pointed out that, the lack of access to finance by our entrepreneurs is still a major concern to the government. “It is important to note that the government is aware of the KYC challenges faced by people who want to open and operate a bank account,” she noted.

Adding “It is our expectation that, the ongoing project on National Identity Card would help mitigate the prevailing challenges on KYC. She said that the summit would come up with appropriate approaches on how to link the formal or semi formal and informal financial institutions to accelerate financial inclusion initiatives and achieving equitable development.

East Africa Microfinance Network and Chairman of Tanzania Microfinance Association (TAMFI) Mr Joel Mwakitalu said that the summit is an opportunity for microfinance actors to demonstrate success cases of saving low-income communities in different challenging environment.

“We are here to celebrate our efforts in contributing to our regional development through microfinance services but also plan future initiatives,” he said.