Members of the parliamentary standing committee on political affairs and gender yesterday tasked a team of senior managers from Rwanda Development Bank (BRD) to explain why very few exporters were aware of the Export Growth Fund (EGF) despite billions of public funds that have been pumped into it.

The president of the parliamentary standing committee on political affairs and gender Janvier Kanyamashuli (centre) speaks to BRD officials during the hearing as other members of the committee look on yesterday. Sam Ngendahimana.

EGF was initiated by the Government in 2016 to ease access to export-related funding. It aims at broadening the range of products and services offered by financial institutions to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) with export potential, or those that are already active in the export sector.

MP Suzanne Mukayijore compared the fund to the Business Development Fund (BDF), which she said has not been popularised among its target beneficiaries.

"I am very concerned that the EGF is going to end up as BDF which its target market, especially outside Kigali, know nothing about. What are you doing to change that and how does the National Agricultural Export Development Board come in?” she wondered.

Benjamin Manzi, the Export Investments Senior Manager at BRD, admitted that there was still a long way to go in making the fund known to the masses albeit stressing that not everyone is their target market.

"When it comes to awareness, we can do better and we are working on it. Right now, we are preparing a countrywide awareness campaign to explain to the masses that the money is available in commercial banks. However, the bitter truth is that not everyone can know about this because not everyone is our target. How many are producing for export,” he said. 

So far, he pointed out that there has already been an export campaign with all sectors that are concerned and letters inviting them to pick interest in the fund had been sent to all companies that are involved in exports.

MP Theoneste Safari Begumisa asked the BRD team to use numbers to give a picture of how many the fund had helped since it was set up.

In response, Manzi told the MPs that the money is not necessarily disbursed as applied for, pointing out that the bank does not go beyond Rwf900 million for an individual project.

"In 2016, we gave funds to five people. In 2017, we disbursed funds to ten people and in 2018 we gave 16 people and we feel that they will be competitive. These numbers have improved because the fund was previously targeting horticulture and manufacturing but it was opened up to include all exporters,” he said.

Lilliane Gihozo Uwera, Chief Operations Officer of BRD, told the lawmakers that the bank was not yet happy with the turn-up and was doing everything possible to improve that.

"To be honest, we are not happy with the results so far. We want to see more growth and more numbers but we hope that, with the change in eligibility, we can achieve that. We are doing more marketing and have signed a contract with a marketing agency that will help us with more visibility,” she said.

The Government injects Rwf1 billion into the fund annually. The German government owned development bank, KfW, has committed an extra €8.5 million toward the fund, of which €2.5 million is allocated to technical assistance.

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