KISUMU, Kenya, July 7 – The government has decried the slow pace of repayment for the Uwezo fund, a flagship project for vision 2030 aimed at enabling women, youth, and persons with disabilities access to finances to promote businesses.
Chief Administrative Secretary, Ministry of Public Service, Gender, Senior Citizens Affairs, and Special Programmes, Rachael Shebesh says it has been a challenge recovering the fund from the groups.
“When Uwezo was administered in the beginning, there was a rumor that this money was not to be repaid, it was a gift from the President,” she said.
Shebesh says the Ministry had to employ other measures to have the groups repay to allow other Kenyans to borrow the money for their growth.
She says the Ministry has been working closely with the office of County Commissioners, cascaded down to the office of chiefs and their assistants to have the funds repaid.
“We have serious mechanisms and I want to thank our officers again in collaboration with the officers of the social service who pressurize the groups to repay,” she said.
Speaking in Kisumu on Thursday when she gave out cheques of Uwezo funds worth Sh. 5.7 million to groups from Seme and Kisumu West Sub Counties, Shebesh says the government will not let go of funds that have been disbursed to groups and need to be repaid.
She however noted that with the mechanisms put in place, the repayment is slowly picking up and is optimistic that all the monies will be recovered to empower other groups as well.
Shebesh announced that Kisumu County is at 40 percent of the repayment process, noting that the government is now giving out the funds based on the repayment of each county.
She noted that despite giving out funds to the new groups, the government will continue to pursue and use all means to recover what was borrowed by the groups.
“The issue of getting money and not repaying is not sustainable, we are very serious on the repayment,” she declared.
