President William Ruto has said regional countries can propel the growth of the Micro Small and Medium Enterprises by providing affordable credit such as Hustler Fund which is backed by the public.
Speaking during the 25th East African Community MSME Trade Fair in Nairobi, President Ruto benchmarked the fund as a game changer in unlocking affordable credit especially to special groups who lack capital to expand their ventures.
President Ruto said since the launch of the fund in November 2022, the government has disbursed Ksh 80 billion to Kenyans some of them small businesses.
“Today we have close to 800,000 small businesses that borrow money on our bridge finance as part of the Hustler Fund and they are doing this without collateral. The biggest problem we had in Kenya is to access credit,” President Ruto.
According to the President, the decision by the government to rehabilitate at least 7 million accounts, out of which 3 million were small enterprises from the Credit Reference Bureaus blacklist has supported growth of MSMEs who now no longer rely on collateral to secure credit.
“Today an ordinary citizen without a payslip, without a title deed, without a logbook can access up to Ksh 150,000 on Hustler Fund. The only collateral being their credit record that they are decent people and they can pay,” he stated.
“We are now advancing efforts to securitize this credit score recognizing it as collateral to unlock financing for millions especially young people and women who lack traditional assets as property or formal payslips.”
President Ruto who is also the current Chairperson of EAC rallied the eight member states including Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and Somalia to avail affordable credit to MSMEs to enable them scale and take advantage of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) amid shifts in geopolitical alignments.
He further backed the strategy by Kenya to develop County Aggregation and Industrial Parks (CAIPs) in every county to help in expansion of various value chains such as leather, textile, coffee, tea and edible oils.
“The ultimate goal is that we need to assist small enterprises who may not have money to rent their own space to use spaces that we have already built and to also share some of the equipment that they use,” President Ruto noted.
The third day of the trade fair which brings together at least 3000 MSMEs from the eight EAC member states also marked DRC day with various products from the country on display.
