El proyecto

EFC Uganda Limited (MDI) is a licensed Microfinance Deposit-taking Institution in Uganda. It was created in 2011 by Développement Desjardins International to provide access to financial services for the underserved SME market segment. The company operates in Kampala with a head office, two branches and five business service centers. EFC Uganda is supervised by the Bank of Uganda and has several reputable shareholders. 

Shem Kakembo is the Managing Director since early 2018. Prior to joining EFC Uganda, Shem worked in leading management positions in financial industry in Uganda and Rwanda since 2003. His latest apointment prior to joining was as Head of Personal Markets (Retail) at Stanbic Bank (Uganda’s largest bank). 

Information document of the issuing company EFC (NL)

Information note of the issuing company EFC (BE)

Loan purpose

One heart investment group is a group of 150 former construction site laboures (porters and masons) who 5 years ago decided to come together to produce construction materials and supply to the various construction sites that they previously worked. There major driver was to become self-employed and secure their future since manual labourers tended to be rejected as they grew older.

With this loan of EUR 300,000, the 150 members of the ‘One heart group’ will acquire the land on which they operate and save the cost of renting premises, purchase a brick making machine to increase production efficiency and employ more labourers.

Background

One heart investment group has been in existence for 5 years and formally registered their association in 2019 after being advised that it’s a requirement for them to access borrowing and they opened their account with Efc Uganda limited which they prefer to be their financier.

Today, the Association has a total of 150 members and is projected to grow to over 300 Members by end of 2021. All these members are self-employed by the one heart investment group and profit is shared equally among them. Key decisions are arrived at by voting using the ‘one man one vote’ principle. To join, members apply and pay a one-off membership fee and are required to have been labourers at a construction site.

The objective of the association is to promote mutual economic interest of its members and improve members’ lively hood through strengthening members income base and promoting self-employment.

Membership

Members shall consist of;

• Members who do technical work and those that do casual work, but they all undergo the same registration procedures, and they all follow the same group constitution

Affordability

The Association management is responsible for marketing of the ready products and this has been success full because there is always ready market for the products given the construction boom currently happening in Uganda. This is a strong point to note in that production and sales can be tracked for payments and monitoring since they are the ones producing and supplying to end users.

This proposal is backed up by the fact that;

The Construction and building sector is on a peak currently in the country and building material which these people deals in specifically don’t face price fluctuation as it is in other products.

EFC projects that this association will grow stronger in the years to come, increasing its membership and revenues.