of the scheme with NHIF health insurance cards.
Premier Majaliwa lauded the financial institutions for supporting the government’s initiatives to make the cooperatives sector a strong economic front. During his speech the day before issuing the NMB-financed NHIF cards, he said, “We in government are satisfied with the support financial institutions are giving cooperative unions. We have also persuaded banks to address the issue of interest rates which they are now working on with the Bank of Tanzania”.
Mr Filbert Mponzi, NMB’s head of retail banking, said the bank intends to increase the Sh5 billion set aside to provide loans to more than 300,000 farmers throughout the nation. He said, “This amount will be increased depending on demand for the service and how farmers respond to the health insurance loans’ scheme”.
Mr Filbert Mponzi stated that in addition to assisting productive farming, the bank was also funding the Ushirika Afya project to help the government achieve its goal of universal health insurance coverage. He said, “These loans are interest-free and farmers will repay them after harvesting and selling their produce”.
Mr Issac Masusu, the bank’s chief of Agribusiness Retail Banking, told the media that NMB will issue the second batch of 90 Ushirika Afya cards in Kahama this week. Mr Bernard Konga, NHIF’s Director General, said the initiative’s implementation, which had been hampered by farmers’ financial restrictions since its debut in 2018, has finally been resolved by NMB’s intervention.
According to Dr. Benson Ndiege, Executive Director of the Tanzania Cooperatives Development Commission (TCDC), such value-added mediations will persuade many farmers to join cooperative unions and strengthen the sector. Mr Louis Bura, the District Commissioner of Urambo District, stated that the new Ushirika Afya milestone would not have been achievable without the help and coordination of TCDC.
