Loans granted to the visually impaired!

The Small Industries Development Organisation (SIDO) in Dar es Salaam Region has pledged to provide soft loans to the visually impaired and other people in the region, who underwent a two-week seminar on entrepreneurship last week.

The Dar es Salaam Regional SIDO Manager, Hamwel Saliel Meena, announced at the week end when closing the seminar, which was held at the Tanzania National Institute for the Blind (TNIB) office at Kinondoni, in the city. Meena said that the organisation would always be ready to dish out loans to persons who prove that they could do a business properly.

He said the seminar would enable the participants to run a business without becoming bankrupt. `We cannot continue dishing out loans to a person who had been given a lump sum of 50,000/- as capital only to be found later with a capital of 20,000/-. It shows that there is no improvement for such a person in the business, and s/he is not capable of doing business, and so such a person is not legible for our loans,` he said.

The Manager added that SIDO would be ready to continue providing loans on conditions that the applicant would be productive, adding that this would boost his or her capital and make more profit for her or his venture. `I will provide loans to people who are capable. The funds are abundant so come and ask for a loan provided you meet the conditions, do not hesitate,` he told the seminar participants.

Meena said that the entrepreneurship skills they obtained during the seminar were important to them if they seriously used them to do business, which would enable them fend off poverty. Earlier, the Executive Director of TNIB, James Shimwenye thanked the organisation for facilitating the training seminar and asked it to continue helping the institute in capacity building. The seminar was organised by TNIB and financed by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) at a cost of 6m/-.