AfricaPress-Tanzania: PRESIDENT John Magufuli has praised the Tanzania Agricultural Development Bank (TADB) for affordable loans it issues to local investors, urging it to expand its services to pastoralists marginalised in national economic growth.
Laying a foundation stone at the Kahama Fresh Dairy factory in Kihanga Ward, Kagera Region on Tuesday, the President said that he believed many pastoralists are honest, hence, should be provided with affordable loans.
Elaborating, he praised the TADB Director Japhet Justine, saying his bank not only issues supportive loans, but also offers consultation to the people on how to run businesses with the money and pay back with ease.
“This bank has brought enormous positive changes to local investors. I want to say that if you give loan to pastoralists, we can also raise up our economy through livestock. I want to tell you Karagwe residents, who are herders, you are also useful in our economy and if we focus on modern livestock keeping methods, we can immensely contribute to the growth of our economy,” he said.
However, the President urged the pastoralists around the dairy factory to grab the opportunity, in terms of acquiring new modern livestock keeping methods and milk sales to improve their welfares.
Equally, he urged them to drink a lot of milk, saying the country’s milk consumption is still down according to the World Health Organisation’ standards.
Kahama Fresh Dairy factory investor, Mr Josam Ntangireki is one of the TADB loan beneficiaries; he is running on 9bn/- got from the financial institution.
Mr Ntangireki, who is also a pastoralist, urged his fellow herders to form groups, so that they can easily improve their livestock and contribute in national income.
“I personally started with a very few livestock and have gone up to 4,000 as of now. When I presented a loan request, TADB sent me some consultants for a piece of advice, who advised on the kind of a factory to run. I told them I would suffer from lack of raw materials (milk) during the dry season, and they advised me to construct some animal feed processing mill inside this main factory. The idea works a lot,” he said, adding: “The factory will create 400 local employment opportunities and become also a catalyst for modern livestock keeping in the region.”
