PRIDE Tanzania turns into microfinance bank

Pride Tanzania has finalised the process of self-transformation into two entities, one being a fully-fledged financial Institution.

The PRIDE Microfinance Company should be operational as a financial institution by the end of the year, according to the Managing Director of PRIDE Tanzania Rashid Malima.

He said all processes and preliminary requirements by the Bank of Tanzania for establishment of the microfinance banking institution have been met.

The transformation aims at building necessary capacity for PRIDE Tanzania to serve as many Tanzanians as possible so that they effectively participate in raising their household incomes.

According to Malima, the second institution resulting from the transformation -PRIDE NGO, would be responsible for provision of social services to the Tanzanian communities.

The decision to create PRIDE NGO is timely as most of the transactions were being offered to the urban people who are a small percentage of the almost 40 million Tanzanians.

The PRIDE Tanzania NGO, Malima said will be involved in among other things initiation of Microfinance Development Center for the credit officers, small business people and other PRIDE Tanzania clients.

The NGO will also provide financial services to improve rural people focusing on energy, health, safe water, residential improvement and insurance services to the agricultural sector.

``PRIDE NGO will engage in credit, agricultural equipment, and other machinery and equipment for the farmers`` Malima added.

Since establishment in 1993, PRIDE Tanzania which offered small credits with affordable conditions, has developed into a big institution with about 40 branches and a credit portfolio of more than 241.6 billion/-.

The Tanzanian business community has for years been confronted by among other things bureaucracies in the legal and regulatory framework, poor infrastructure, inadequate business skills, and limited access to finance.

Experts` recommendations have been made with view to improve performance of Small and Medium Enterprises.

These include creating an environment that is conducive for business promoting the use of research and development output and propagation of entrepreneurial attitudes and skills.

As information becomes critical for sustainable growth of any Business or Industry in the globalized economy, creation of one stop center for SME`s access to business information has been advocated for.

This is because, despite having plenty of resources at all levels, Tanzania continues to face problems of underexposure of products and services of the business community in the domestic as well as global markets.

With training, PRIDE feels the SME would be reinforced to play a central role in the government efforts to make the private sector the engine of economic growth and catalyst for poverty alleviation.

* SOURCE: Guardian