Farmers should be able to use their livestock as collateral for bank loans from this coming summer cropping season under new arrangements now being organised by the Government.
This would in addition to the 99 year land leases,
Permanent Secretary for Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water, Climate and Rural
Development Dr John Basera told a Star FM radio programme “Muriro on Monday”.
“We have not lost hope or we have not lost it outright. We
are finalising the bankability of 99 year leases so we have some financial
institutions, for example AFC, accepting 99 year leases, All the same we are in
conversation with Bankers Association of Zimbabwe, Law Society of Zimbabwe and
other institutions so that we make sure that our 99 year leases are bankable or
are acceptable by the majority of the banks.
“We are almost finalising the same. The question of whole
Government approach we are working with different and several Ministries and
departments, Attorney General’s Office, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, Ministry of
Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs and of Finance and Investment
Promotion so that we see to it that our 99 year leases are acceptable to most
of the banks in the country,” said Dr Basera.
“However as an interim measure I am sure you are aware that
there was a big pronouncement to have livestock as bankable and collateral. We
are finalising the same. We are in conversation with RBZ so that we see to it
that this season livestock can be bankable. At the moment livestock is only
used for beef and also used to pay lobola and kuripa.
But it is not bankable yet. It is a biological asset which
we need to tap into so that we can create a collateral out of it. So imagine we
have a national herd of 5,6million cattle in the country maybe at an estimated
value of US$400 per beast that is almost US$2 billion to US$3 billion. So we
are finalising the bankability of livestock so that they can be used as
collateral.”
The RBZ launched an online collateral registry for movable
property with appropriate regulations in a bid to promote access to credit.
The collateral registry, a record keeping system for the
existence of security, is a publicly available database of interests or
ownership of movable assets, and enables borrowers to prove their
creditworthiness and potential lenders to determine a borrower’s credit
suitability measured against their collateral. Chronicle
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