Everyone wants to put something aside, for later or to buy something they would like. And if you don’t have the money, you can borrow money from a “microfinance” organisation, supported by charities from the Netherlands.
Queen Máxima of the Netherlands is the patroness of these organisations and is a specialist in this area. Nevertheless, I’m going to give away a secret now. Queen Máxima does not know this yet, and you can’t tell anyone, because if our Queen hears this, I will get a personal reprimand from King Willem-Alexander.
It concerns the following. One of the organisations that offer microcredit so that, for instance, a poor woman can buy a sewing machine to make clothes to sell, asks an official annual interest rate of 3.6%. You might say: that is an attractive deal. Here in Uganda, there are a number of crooks, who like to bend the rules. Three hundred miles away they have increased the annual interest rate to about 36% and sometimes even to 52%.
This way, the poor lady will not be able to repay the loan for her sewing machine. In the meantime, everyone who applies for a loan will be stitched up, and that without a sewing machine. The sharks make a lot of money and drive flashy cars from Maxima’s money while living in beautiful homes in Kampala. They make good money from our charities. Goal achieved, you could say, but to use a Dutch expression they are “getting their sheep on dry land” at the expense of others. While our microfinance organisations look the other way. It is a scandal!
A different sheep-based problem is seen at the end of Ramadan. Everybody wants to serve a sheep for Eid. Because you cannot buy them on credit at an interest rate of 36%, the best thing to do is to steal one.
Recently, some men disguised a stolen sheep with a coat and a hat and put it on the back of a moped. Fortunately, the police spotted them on time and took them into custody. They will be in jail for a few years at least, and it will be a long time before they see another sheep. Unfortunately, they will not be in the next cell to the Ugandan lender who definitely belongs there too.
Feico Smit,
Director of Royal van Zanten, Uganda
