Financial institutions stuck with small business Covid recovery funds

Financial institutions are stuck with government’s Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) Covid-19 recovery funds.

In 2021, government created a covid-19 recovery Fund for SMEs that suffered financial distress arising from the effects of the pandemic with an initial deposit of Shs100bn.

The funds were to be accessed through eligible participating financial institutions in form of loans payable for a period of 3 years.

However, the Manager of SMEs at Stanbic Bank, James Junguru, revealed that they are still stuck with the funds as many SMEs failed to apply for the loan.

He attributed this to lack of documentation which made them unable to prove that their businesses were affected during the pandemic.

Junguru made the remarks while speaking to the media on the sidelines of a booster class in digital skills for entrepreneurs who have been undergoing training in different modules under their project dubbed, ‘Enterprise for Development Programme” organized by Stanbic Business Incubator Limited.

Written by Prossy Kisakye