The government will give Twiga Foods Sh300 million loan for onward lending to suppliers and customers through the yet-to-be-launched Hustler Fund as the new administration gears to boost small enterprises.
President William Ruto made the announcement on Monday during the opening of the Twiga Foods distribution facility at Tatu City in Kiambu County.
“The Sh300 million that you lend to your 140,000 suppliers and customers across Kenya, we are going to make that amount of money available to you so that they can borrow at lower rates and hopefully increase their earnings,” said Ruto.
He directed the Cooperatives Cabinet Secretary Simon Chelugui to ensure that Twiga Foods gets part of the Sh50 billion Hustler Fund set to be launched on Thursday, to be advanced to about 140,000 suppliers.
“That Sh300 million, CS Chelugui, make sure that the customers of Twiga have access to the Hustler Fund and instead of them borrowing at one per cent per day, they should be able to borrow at eight per cent per year,” the President added.
Twiga, an agri-tech firm serving a monthly base of about 33,000 vendors, employs technology to aggregate demand and streamline logistics in the distribution of farm commodities to small-scale business operators in city estates.
The firm early this month announced plans to downsize its workforce of 1,000 staff saying it has transitioned all its trade development representatives to agents as it changes its operations into an agency model.
The announcement came just months after the company expanded its business with an Sh1.6 billion investment.
