Kisii Governor, James Ongwae, has decried over low uptake of the government-sponsored Women Enterprise Fund (WEF) loans in the county.
Ongwae challenged women from the region to apply for the loan, since it is meant to empower them economically.
Ongwae regretted that despite the fund's existence for almost ten years now, the county has only benefitted with Sh126 million out of the Sh6 billion disbursed country wide.
Speaking at the Kisii Culture Hall, where he presided over the distribution of WEF cheques worth Sh4.2 million to women groups in the county, Ongwae challenged the group mangers to intensify financial literacy campaigns to empower more women with the knowledge.
"Naturally women from Gusii community are negatively socialized towards taking loans, most of them believes that taking a loan translates to an auction," observed Ongwae.
Ongwae observed that with exposure and education on the importance of taking WEF he was optimistic that majority of the women from the region will embrace the interest-free loans from WEF.
WEF Chief Executive Officer, Charles Mirigi, disclosed that Kisii County's WEF loans repayment performance was impressive as it stood at 76.6 percent, a performance he said was encouraging to the fund management.
Mirigi reminded women beneficiaries to repay their loans promptly, since they are out of a revolving fund.
"This will enable their fellow women from the county and other counties benefit from the same loans," notes Mirigi.
He hinted that soon the fund's management board will roll out a Local Purchase Order (LPO) financing arrangement, to facilitate women entrepreneurs finance big business orders and tenders, which require colossal sums of money beyond their reach.