Museveni blasts banks over high interest rates

The NRM Party Chairman and President of Uganda Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, speaking during the opening session of the NRM retreat at the National Leadership Institute in Kikyankwanzi on Friday 15, March 2019.

ECONOMY

President Yoweri Museveni has protested the high interest rates charged by commercial banks in Uganda.

"Their lending rate is at 23%; that is just theft. We should say to commercial banks bye-bye. You lend (money) to traders going to China," Museveni said.  

He was on Friday speaking at the eight-day retreat for the National Resistance Movement Parliamentary caucus that started on Thursday at the National Leadership Institute, Kyankwanzi.

 
He said they were going to withdraw their money from the commercial banks levying exorbitant lending rates.

"They are bloodsuckers," he stressed.

An interest rate is a fee that a bank charges its client for borrowing money from it. It is expressed as a percentage of the total amount of the loan one has borrowed.

 
Many commercial banks are lending within a range of 20%-25%. They have been arguing that interest rates are driven by the market and that when the central bank lowers its rate, automatically, they lower theirs.

Museveni asked MPs to support his plan to put more money in the Uganda Development Bank for manufacturers to access loans at an interest rate not exceeding 12% per annum.