Africa-Press – Tanzania. Health insurance history was made in Tabora last weekend when NMB Bank officially rolled out its financing of farmers’ medical services needs in conjunction with the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF).
The top lender has initially set aside 5bn/- for the Ushirika Afya health insurance scheme.
On Friday, the bank signed agreements with two Tabora tobacco cooperative unions that qualify their members for its interest-free loans for the service.
Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa confirmed the first formal rollout of the arrangement on Saturday by presenting three beneficiaries of the scheme with NHIF cards during the commemoration of the International Cooperatives Day held nationally in Tabora.
In his speech to mark the day before presenting the NMB financed NHIF cards, Premier Majaliwa thanked financial institutions for supporting the government’s efforts to make the cooperatives sector a robust economic front.
“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 (BoT),” he noted.
The NMB Bank sponsored cards the prime minister presented to tobacco farmers Kulwa Mfaume, Saleh Mpemba and Athanas Semeduke were part of the initial 102 cards issued by the bank, which has made it the first lender to do so under the Ushirika Afya scheme.
NMB’s Chief of Retail Banking, Mr Filbert Mponzi, said the bank plans to increase the 5bn/- earmarked for lending to over 300,000 farmers across the country.
“This amount will be increased depending on demand for the service and how farmers respond to the health insurance loans’ scheme,” Mr Mponzi revealed before signing the agreements.
According to him, the deals with WETCU and Mirambo cooperative unions, which represent over 200 farmers’ cooperative societies in Tabora Region, will be a huge game changer in the sector.
He said apart from supporting productive farming, the main reason for investing in the Ushirika Afya initiative is to back the government’s aspiration for universal health coverage through health insurance.
He added that the loans are interest-free and farmers will repay them after harvesting and selling their produce as an appreciation of the pivotal role they play in nation building and for being trusted customers of NMB.
“Today is a monumental and historic day for NMB as a strategic development partner of the government and as a bank that serves more than four million Tanzanians since this scheme will ease the availability of health insurance to tobacco farmers in Tabora and farmers of other crops across the country,” Mr Mponzi explained.
The Bank’s Head for Agribusiness Retail Banking, Mr Issac Masusu said that NMB will issue the next batch of 90 Ushirika Afya cards this week in Kahama.
The Director General of NHIF, Mr Bernard Konga said the rollout of the initiative bedevilled by farmers’ fiscal constraints since its launch in 2018 has now been sorted out by NMB’s intervention.
The Executive Director of Tanzania Cooperative Development Commission (TCDC), Dr Benson Ndiege, said such value adding interventions will entice many farmers to join cooperative unions and make the sector strong.
