Staff reporter

Former MDC Alliance Deputy Treasurer General who recently defected to ZANU PF, Cde Lilian Timveous, has this week launched the Zimbabwe Women’s Microfinance (ZWMF) loan programme to benefit women in Shurugwi North constituency.

Speaking at the launch, Timveous said she came up with the idea of a loan programme after realizing that a lot of women were failing to access cheap loans to kick-start their businesses because they don’t have collateral security.

“President Mnangagwa launched the ZWMF in 2018 so that women could access loans to finance their small business. I have realized that a number of women don’t have the required collateral to access the loans; hence, I have come up with this programme. The loans from ZWMF are specifically designed for women and do not need any collateral to access them. The interest rate is at six percent unlike in other financial banks where the interest rate is over 50 percent per annum. I urge you women to take these cheap loans and start doing businesses,” said Timveous.

Timveous added that the bank did not need a project proposal or a business plan for women to access the loans but they should be in groups of at least five people. She urged beneficiaries to religiously service the loans so that it would continue to benefit other deserving women.

She informed attendees that there is a training programme code named “Get up and Grow” currently targeting youths and women so that they would be equipped with skills to manufacture detergents, flour, shoe polish and candles among other things. She urged women to enroll for the training to acquire money making skills.

Women who attended the meeting commended the loan programme introduced by Timveous and said they would apply for the loans to finance their small businesses. The women said they now want politics that benefits them instead of politics of hate and destruction that is usually preached by other opposition parties.

Timveous also took the opportunity to inform the gathering the reasons that caused her defection from the MDC Alliance to ZANU PF. She said after reflecting on her political career, she realized that ZANU PF has people at heart and was initiating empowerment programmes to uplift its people from poverty unlike in the MDC Alliance where people are taught to attack whatever the Government does.

Timveous said the urge to be on the winning side and the escalation of confrontational and toxic politics in the MDC Alliance propelled her to dump the opposition outfit.

The loan programme seems to have charmed a number of women as there are reports that after that meeting, hordes of MDC Alliance women are silently defecting to the ruling party in search of empowerment opportunities. During its Party Building Committee meeting this week, the MDC Alliance’s co-vice leader Lynette Karenyi-Kore admitted that they were failing to penetrate Midlands province because of Cde Timveous’ empowerment programmes.