By Getrude Matayo
Since the announcement of the first covid-19 outbreak in Kenya, the hotel sector is going through tough economic times. Most hotels shut down and fired employees. Some send their employees to unpaid leave.
But according to Tourism Cabinet Secretary Najib Balala, the hotels ravaged by the coronavirus crisis will access cheap loans at an interest rate between five to seven percent under a 10 Billion shillings state-backed credit scheme.
CS Najib Balala on Wednesday says that the scheme will offer affordable credit to hotels and firms operating in the tourism sector especially small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
The loans will run for 10 years, lowering the monthly obligations and borrowers will start repaying the debt after two years.
“This will enable them to maintain their staff, reinvest or refurbish their products and redesign their experiences in order to make them competitive and adaptive to the new norm” Cabinet Secretary Najib Balala.
“Kenya has lost over 80 billion so far in tourism revenue, about half of last years total due to the coronavirus crisis,” Said Najib Balala
Tourism Cabinet Secretary Mr. Najib Balala said that the government has already established the credit scheme at 50 percent of the proposed amount allocation of 2 billion shillings for a hotel refurbishment and 3 billion for credit guarantee scheme for SMEs in the past and current financial years respectively.
According to CS Najib Balala, earlier today at the committee, the 3 billion hotel refurbishment fund will be channeled through the tourism Finance Corporation. The credit policy has been developed and proved by the TFC Board and framework for operationalization of the fund has submitted to the Cabinet Secretary for concurrence
The government ordered all bars and nightclubs to be closed as the country’s confirmed cases of coronavirus went past 15,000.