Bank, municipal council in blame game over loans

What you need to know:

  • While the entrepreneurs and the municipal leaders criticise the DCB Commercial Bank for delaying to distribute the loans to the respective groups, the bank says the municipality takes too long to disburse the money.

Dar es Salaam. Small entrepreneurs have complained about delays of loans extended by Kinondoni Municipal as both the local council and the bank officials throw blames to each other.

While the entrepreneurs and the municipal leaders criticise the DCB Commercial Bank for delaying to distribute the loans to the respective groups, the bank says the municipality takes too long to disburse the money.

When Kinondoni municipal mayor Mr Boniface Jacob visited several entrepreneurship groups at the weekend, he was greeted by disappointment that majority of the groups were facing difficulties in accessing the credits. “We have 106 groups comprising of five members each but only 26 groups have so far accessed loans,” said Kawe Community Development Officer Ms Oliver Ng’utto.

She said it’s difficult to access loans timely because DCB puts a lot of obstacles and therefore the groups fail to expand their businesses.

“Sometimes we are told to re-file our particulars and when we finish the procedures, they tell us to wait until they notify us. This takes time,” she added. Mr Jacob said the municipal was working on the problem and that some banks had applied to enter into partnership with municipal. “Therefore if DCB cannot provide the services properly, we may look for other banks to work with,” he said. He mentioned the banks that applied for the partnership as Tanzania Women Bank, CRDB Bank and the National Microfinance Bank (NMB).

DCB loan manager Ms Maria Kabeho told The Citizen that her organization has no problem with entrepreneurs on issuing the loans .