The Uasin Gishu County Enterprise Development Fund Committee has disbursed Ksh13 million out of the Ksh19 million approved for various Cooperative Societies this Financial Year. The funds will be loaned out to cooperatives that applied to boost their enterprises, according to Ruth Samoei, the county chief officer for Cooperatives and Enterprise Development. Ms. Samoei said her department will work on mechanisms to enhance the fund in the coming years so that it can benefit more societies.
She made the remarks while scrutinizing and approving CEDF loan application documents for Cooperatives that met the threshold. The committee chair, Philip Mamet, noted on his part that the county has made the fund accessible, affordable, and available for the societies. He maintained that it was vital for the societies to put the approved funds into use, calling on them to adopt swift models for repayment and challenging the committee members to work on strengthening the fund to make it more sustainable.
The committee also discussed modalities for countering the late repayment of societies dues by the processors, which is said to be the highest contributing factor to late repayments of county loans by the cooperative societies. CEDF Director Kipleting Mengich and his counterpart for Trade, Isaac Laga, called on the societies that did not qualify to ensure they followed all the set guidelines on compliance issues for them to benefit.
Societies that depicted easy and traceable cash flow records, the status of their loan repayment, and a clear purpose for loan application were approved with fewer objections. Farmer-based societies, boda boda, and matatu Saccos are the sectors that applied for the funds that are given out at 8% and 5% interest annually.
