By Our Reporter,

The sole agricultural bank in the country, Tanzania Agricultural Development Bank (TADB), has confirmed to have enough capital to sustain its strategic mandate to address the bottlenecks in agricultural sector and to enhance access to credits in order to facilitate transformation of the agricultural sector in the country.

The assurance was made by the Acting Managing Director of the Bank, Mr. Japhet Justine. In providing clarification and additional information about the bank’s capital to media, Mr. Justine emphasized that the bank has adequate capital and it continues to increase the capital as per its strategic plan.

Mr. Justine said that according to the feasibility study conducted in 2011 during the establishment of the Bank, it was noted that the capitalization needed to enable TADB to achieve its strategic objectives and to achieve the expectations of the Government and Farmers by 2035 was USD 500 Million worth TZS. 800 billion as Authorized Capital.

According to Mr. Justine, since the start of the official lending operations in 2015, the Government has continued to provide the Bank with sustainable capitalization. In 2015, the Government issued TZS. 60 billion as paid-up capital; in 2017 the government facilitated the bank to obtain a long-term loan from the African Development Bank (AfDB) where in the first tranche the bank has been awarded a total of TZS. 104 billion. The second tranche is expected at the beginning of 2019.

"Therefore, currently the Bank has enough capital for lending tofarmers in the country" he said.

The acting MD further explained that the Bank is progressing well.Since its inception, the bank has disbursed loans to farmers amounting to TZS 48.6Billion of which TZS. 37.2 Billion isdisbursed between January and July 2018. This indicates the new speed that the bank has embarked on alongside other government initiatives to transform agriculture such as ASDP II.  

According to Mr. Justine the disbursed loans have benefited more than 520,291 smallholder farmers with a view to promote and support transformation of agriculture from subsistence to commercial undertaking and to effectively and sustainably contribute to economic growth and poverty reduction in the country.

Mr. Justine added that TADB is actively implementing Government directives that are dedicated to to transformation of the agricultural sector in the country through mobilisation of financial resources and provision of adequate and appropriate financing as well as promoting supportive policies for development of the Sector.

"I invite Tanzanian farmers to come to their bank to find and benefit from our services. This bank is for farmers and they will be proud to continue using the available bank services for them" Mr. Justine said.