By Emma Kakololo
WINDHOEK
Trade and Industry Minister Immanuel Ngatjizeko has urged financial institutions to come up with innovative financial solutions to address the plight of SMEs to access affordable finance.
The minister said that despite many financial institutions having established entities to provide financial solutions to small medium enterprises, the operators were still complaining to the ministry that they were unable to access affordable finances.
“A common reason cited for this problem appears to be the rigid requirement from the banks that those applying for finance should have collateral to secure the loans,” he said.
Ngatjizeko was speaking at the launch of business unit for SMEs by a local bank recently.
He stressed that although he was in agreement that some kind of security was required, innovative financial solutions should be developed to address this predicament.
“We in Government are also doing our best, hence the creation of the Small Business Credit Guarantee Trust.”
He said that for the trust to remain relevant, government had instituted measures to remodel it with a view to adopting enhanced financial services.
“This process is still underway” Ngatjizeko said, “and we hope to make headway in the shortest period of time.”
He said: “The best practical way to address the current impeding factors in accessing finance is to change the mindset of those who possesses finances, in order for them to realize that we can only develop our country once we accept that our people can indeed be trusted.
“The current orientation of our financial sector may have been developed on the back of old practices which regarded our people as not being trustworthy.”
Ngatjizeko said it was about time for a new dialogue with a transformational outlook of the country’s financial services sector, in order to bring about real change.
“Very recently, Parliament’s attention was drawn to what many of our citizens believed was an extensively high interest rate regime prevalent in our banks.
As if this was not enough, people are still complaining about long queues experienced at banks especially during lunch hours and at month-end.
“Common sense dictates that if you pay high fees for a service, then you should be given a better service.”
“It is important that we in government and the private sector should look at new ways to address the plight of our people.”