Board Chairperson for the National Economic Empowerment Fund Limited (NEEF) Jephta Mtema has challenged NEEF staff to disburse loans that they will collect to avoid saddling the Fund with non-performing loans.
Mtema said this during a two-day preparatory meeting for the 2022 financial year that the Fund conducted on Friday and Saturday at Mponela in Dowa.
“As a board, we expect that NEEF should have a clean loan and performing portfolio by disbursing loans that they will collect,” said Mtema.
To achieve this, according to Mtema, the loan officers should be conducting a rigorous assessment so that the loans are given to credible borrowers that have the capacity to repay.
He also challenged NEEF loan officers to reduce incidences of indiscipline by identifying and reporting fraud.
At the meeting, NEEF Chief Executive Officer, Humphrey Mdyetseni advised the staff to learn from the challenges the Fund faced during the 2021 disbursements for the 2022 disbursements to be conducted successfully.
“We have deployed loan officers in all constituencies across the country to ensure effective disbursements in 2022.
“This is a milestone that will ensure that our loan officers are close to the people to reduce the distances that the public was traveling to access NEEF services,” said Mdyetseni.
He further said the deployment of the loan officers in every constituency will enhance monitoring of the loans and in turn boost collections.
As a way of motivating staff, the Fund recognized Zomba Area Supervisor, Alfreck Kamenya as the 2021 Employee of the year for achieving 85% recovery rate of the loan he disbursed in Zomba district.
NEEF is expected to start the 2022 disbursements at the end of April following the approval of the 2022/2023 Financial year budget by parliament under which the Fund has been allocated K7 Billion.