Africa-Press – Tanzania. DODOMA: CONTROLLER and Auditor General (CAG), Charles Kichere has said the government needs to boost the capital of the Tanzania Agricultural Development Bank (TADB) to meet the capital requirement by the regulator.
He said during the handover of the 2022/23 financial year report to President Samia Suluhu Hassan in Dodoma yesterday that the bank is undercapitalised with only 88.12bn/- capital against the requirement of 200bn/- as per the banks and financial institutions guideline for 2020/21.
“The agricultural bank is facing a major challenge of the capital shortage, thus calling for the government to continue injecting more money to improve the agricultural lender’s capital,” said Mr Kichere at the event.
He however said he was aware of the government’s plans of injecting 118.88bn/- to boost the agriculture lender’s capital and meet the capital requirement. In the latest development last month, the government secured multinational loan agreements to finance infrastructure and agriculture sectors.
In this loan arrangement, the agriculture sector secured 166.4bn/- to enhance TADB capital aimed at financing agricultural activities thus increasing production, strengthening food security, promoting the trade of products sold locally and abroad as well as increasing jobs and raising the economy for individual, family and the nation as whole.
Speaking at the event, Minister for Finance, Dr Mwigulu Nchemba said, “Through this increase of capital, we expect TADB to increase access to loans for youth groups through the Building a Better Tomorrow (BBT) programme which continues to be implemented by the government through the Ministry of Agriculture.”
However, Dr Nchemba said that it is the first time AfDB supported such kind of project, and added Tanzania benefited from AfDB’s five main pillars of ‘light up and power Africa, feed Africa, integrate Africa, Industrialise Africa and Improve the lives of people of Africa’.
“Our country has benefited greatly in all these pillars since 1971, including construction, energy, water, education, agriculture, health and the private sector,” he said.
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