Tanzania Business Community chairman Johnson Minja speaks at a past event.
Dar es Salaam. Tanzanian traders are planning to establish their own bank in a move meant to help businesspeople get easy access to loans.
They are looking for a Sh5 billion seed capital so they can start a financial institution which will gradually turn into a commercial bank.
The Tanzania Business Community chairman, Johnson Minja, told The Citizen earlier this week that traders are currently mobilising their resources together so they can realise their dream.
Lack of capital has been the biggest challenge afflicting local businesses from involving in big investment.
The key investment lender –TIB Development Bank - has been unable to meet the traders' needs as it is operating under a deficit of more than 150 per cent.
TIB Development Bank currently has a capital base of $300 million against a demand of $2 billion.
With such limited funds TIB is unable to finance and meet the needs of the private sector which needs a lot of cash to invest in big development projects.
According to Mr Minja, members of the business community are planning to meet early July and discuss on how local businesses will be empowered to smoothly do business.
"We have very good businesspeople with very good business ideas but the problem is that they lack capital. Since the government has failed to provide a solution to this problem, we are planning to look into better ways that can see us financing ourselves," said Mr Minja...........BOFYA HAPA
