WOMEN'S BANK OPENS 'ASCROW' ACCOUNT

There is general worldwide concern that women's rights in one form or the other should be improved so that the gap between men and women is reduced. This is in areas such as access to education, land, political and managerial positions, health services and so on. Economic empowerment for women is also a concern of the global development agenda, and Tanzania is taking its own steps to improve the situation of women in economic spheres. One project, which is the offing is the opening of a Women's Bank. A leading Sunday Newspaper had this on its front page of October 7, 2007: “WOMEN'S BANK TO BE OPENED SOON, pg 3”. On page 3 there is a brief article entitled “Women's Bank to be a reality soon”, by the Sunday Paper's Reporter.

The reporter talked to the Deputy Minister for Community Development, Gender and Children, Ms Salome Mbatia. She said that groundwork for the establishment of the first ever Tanzania Women Commercial Bank had been completed. What remained was to get an appropriate building in Dar es Salaam to house the bank, and to raise the 2bn/= initial capital demanded by the Bank of Tanzania. The Bank had already been registered and an 'ASROW' Account opened, it was reported. Now, what is an ASROW account? We are used to the usual savings accounts, fixed deposit accounts, current accounts, overdraft accounts and so on but this was the first time I read of an ASROW account. Most likely the reporter did not hear well, and decided to write what he or she thought she heard, but did he or she know what that type of account stood for?

Gurus in banking have assured me that what they know which sounds or reads like ASROW is ESCROW. An escrow is money, land or a written contract etc that is held by someone who is not directly involved in an agreement while the agreement is being achieved. An Escrow Account is a special account opened to hold funds for a particular purpose, pending conclusion of a certain arrangement. For instance, a seller of a house may demand that pending conclusion of the transfer process following the sale of his house, the purchase price should be deposited in an escrow account with a certain bank and will only be made available to the seller after completion of the transfer process as provided for in the sale agreement. Clearly, the women have opened an ESCROW account and not an ASROW account, whatever this latter means.

Is the Women's Bank opening soon? There are still major hurdles. The Deputy Minister said that: “initial capital would be 'accrued' from Women Development Fund, Social Security Funds, Councils and through selling of the Bank shares to women”. The word accrue is not the correct vocabulary since it means growing gradually over time. For example if you owe money and do not pay, then interest accrues as long as the debt remains unpaid. What the writer had in mind is that the initial capital would be raised from the listed sources. And incidentally, what are Councils? The writer most probably meant local authorities.

Without a building, without initial capital and with the opening on non-existent types of ASROWaccounts, can we be assured that the Women's Bank will be a reality soon? One is left wondering.

SOURCE: DAILY NEWS