By Hakiim Wampamba
The Uganda Development Bank has posted a net profit of 38.8billion shillings for the financial year 2021.
Patricia Ojangole the bank’s managing director says that the bank is set to solve more cash flow challenges of small and medium enterprises through its special programme.
Micro small and medium enterprises have for long suffered with cash flow challenges given the high cost of credit from the private sector financial institutions.
Government set up the Uganda Development Bank to massage this pain and grow the economy , through providing cheaper but patient financing to the SMEs that form not only 70% of entire business enterprises but bank roll government through payment of taxes.
In light of supporting the recovery from the COVID 19 pandemic amounts of shillings 851 billion has been given out in loans , shillings 428 billion in disbursements, shillings635 billion, as a result , 41,338 jobs have been created to the private sector .
This has left the bank with total assests worth 1.22 trillion shillings and a net profit of 38.8billion shillings.
Patricia Ojangole said “ We have a programme designed to specifically to de- risk these enterprises through our business accelerator for successful entrepreneurship as well as streamlining our list of requirements to accommodate more SMEs.“
Chief Economist at the bank Dr. Francis Mwesigye, said that with the current economic crisis the demand for fianacing is higher visa-vie the portfolio and as such sectors with a higher probability for propelling growth will be the key focus going forward
He revealed, “We are going to focus on Agro industrialization, or primary agriculture, human capital ( health, education and others ) as well as ICT.“
But as uncertainty grows by the day, the risk of lending to SMEs will increase in the short and medium term but officials at bank say that this will be addressed by the robust framework of lending and business support.
