Dodoma — DODOMA: FINANCIAL education will reach 80 per cent of Tanzanians by 2025, the government has said.
Speaking during an entrepreneurship, Investment and Financial Literacy seminar held in Dodoma on Sunday, the Tanzania Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture (TCCIA) Vice Chairman, Joseph Olomi said 40 per cent of Tanzanians are financially illiterate and this makes them unsuccessful in conducting their businesses.
"Many Tanzanians are struggling to make money and they lose them by making investments without financial and business education, many are injecting their money into business and are becoming unsuccessful because they lack financial education," he said.
"To achieve business competition the government has continued its efforts to provide entrepreneurship, investment and finance education through various platforms to ensure 80 per cent of Tanzanians have the knowledge by 2025," he added.
Mr Olomi commended the Enterprise Finance Ltd (EFL) credit company for making corporate social responsibility to educate, empower and to provide skills to businesspeople and entrepreneurs so as to help them make progress in business.
On his part, EFL Credit Manager Paul Kulwa said the major aim of the seminar was to educate entrepreneurs and the general public so as to help them operate business effectively without diverting their funds.
"Due to the lack of business education and finance literacy many people have been taking loans and diverting the money to other projects that they did not plan which makes them unable to meet their goals and sometimes unable to repay their loans," he said.
"Before lending we should educate them so that the money they take as loans can benefit them and help them return their loans, we are asking them not to borrow if they don't have finance literacy or they don't know how to utilise the fund, our biggest thing today is to provide education, we teach them finance literacy," he added.
Prof Goodlucky Urassa from the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM), who is also chairman of the EFL, said the biggest problem facing businesses in the country was lack of business management education where many are starting businesses but failing to manage them properly.
