County Government of Laikipia

The County Government of Laikipia's Economic Stimulus Fund has continued to receive traction as the government puts extra measures meant to ensure more businesses in Laikipia benefit from this fund.

Recently the government invited a team of 20 trainers from Metropol to train the lead Business Development Officers (BDOs) from every department to be a trainer of trainees and help spread the good news to the other BDOs across the county at Beisa Hotel Nanyuki.

The government has 200 dedicated county government staff to handhold local SMEs to upgrade their businesses.

Metropol provides credit rating services that enable corporates to raise capital and meet their financing needs.

The training means good news to the local businesses as the BDOs will provide them with information on how to improve their creditworthiness and make the local banks have confidence in providing the loans. The economic stimulus is a kitty that the county government of Laikipia came up with in partnership with some banks to provide loans at a subsidized rate for any business operating in Laikipia. The kitty has about Ksh 3 bn.

The government pays five percent of the interest for any loanee. Some of the reasons why some businesses are listed negatively are because of some minor issues that can be easily solved but some of the entrepreneurs give up just upon realizing they are blacklisted. The lack of adequate information has disadvantaged many needy businesses and left them anguishing through the economic hardship brought about by COVID-19 as it negatively affected many businesses.

CRB services leverage full-file credit information sharing and alternate data sources from MFIs, SACCOs, HELB, Utilities, Mobile phone companies, and providers of goods and services on credit to help customers improve their access to finance and increase the credit providers's capacity to lend profitably to more customers.

It is envisioned that with this new knowledge, there will be an increase in the uptake of the economic stimulus loan this year.

Already there are about 900 approved applications and more keep on coming. For those intending to take loans not exceeding Ksh. 100,000, the government acts as the guarantor.

Scaling Up Strategies

The government is engaging with the banks to design loan products favorable to the crops and livestock farmers including seasonal payments for facilities to match the production cycles.

There is also an extension of the engagement period with KCB bank beyond June 2022 which gave a reprieve to Loanees of large facilities through an extended repayment period.