Cooperatives Cabinet Secretary Simon Chelugui on Tuesday clarified that it was too early for the Credit Reference Bureau (CRB) to access Hustler Fund data.
Speaking during an interview on Citizen TV, the CS, however, stated the government was working to ensure the Fund’s users accessed a good credit score.
He disclosed that the government was yet to build a lasting partnership with CRB and was still betting on more time to develop a good relationship with the credit rating agency.
According to Chelugui, it was barely 18 months since the launch of the Fund, a timeframe the CS claimed was too narrow to actualize the partnership.
“We haven’t reached there because we are only 18 months old. It is a product we are developing but ultimately we believe we will have the largest information on Credit Bureau,” Chelugui noted.
While addressing the issues, Chelugui dismissed claims that the government turned down a partnership with the credit bureau, stating that in the next couple of months, CRB would be allowed to access borrowers' data.
"We have not closed anyone out including the CRB. We are developing a partnership with CRB right now but we need to build some database," Chelugui stated.
"This is so that by the time we engage because we are approaching 2 years by November this year, we will have enough information,” he added.
The CS noted there first needed to be consistency by the borrowers before the government decided on engaging the Credit Rating Bureau.
According to Chelugui, there were already 2 million borrowers who according to the government had demonstrated good credit status and borrowed over 10 times.
"We believe in the next two years we can still deepen information from these hustlers and as I speak to you, we are engaged with CRB to develop a scoring tool for them," the CS clarified.
“The scoring tool CRB have could be very high because one, the way they structured their scoring is mostly from banks or big financial institutions."
