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Meghji exhorts Tanzanians to develop saving culture
2007-12-24 09:42:12
By Correspondent Hellen Nachilongo
Finance minister Zakhia Meghji has challenged Tanzanians, irrespective of their financial status, to develop a saving culture with e view to wealth creation and economic development at family and national levels.
Launching a new board of trustees of the Unit Trust of Tanzania in Dar es Salaam on friday, Meghji said: ``If one tries to save by the millions, one can never find enough money to save.
But a disciplined approach, a well planned target and a consistent drive can give the desired results, even if the initial amount may be smal,l as investment by its very nature provides an inherent benefit of compounding.``
The minister said if properly managed, money can earn more money.
She challenged UTT to strive and make a difference by propaunding the notion that saving is not only for the wealthy.
``Even those with small amounts of miney may save.
Saving should therefore be more habitual than wealth-driven,” she said.
She stressed having a collective investment scheme that would be responsible for collecting funds from small savers who would otherwise not be in a position to access the securities market, and invest the funds on their behalf.
``UTT`s main objective will be to maximise returns and minimising risks as well as costs for individual investors.
Hence this disciplined approach needs to be viewed as a welcome step to broadening the investor base in the country.``
The finance minister challenged UTT to work in line with government endeavors of reducing poverty among the people.
According to her, the main barometer of UTT`s success was to make a critical appraisal of major strides it had made in launching unit trust schemes in the country-which had made commendable progress.
Among adopted unit trust schemes is Umoja Fund which has about 96,500 unit holders on record who are mainly small investors with investment below 5,000/-.
UTT acting board chairperson Janeth Mmari said: ``At the UTT innovation is always the order of the day. In May next year we`ll launch two more products, namely Regular Income Plan(RIP) and Children`s Career Plan(CCP). Both of them are on the drawing board.``
She said RIP would address retirees` need for regular income and CCP would work towards the overall development of children in the country.
According to Mmari, UTT started its operations with an initial capital of 36.8bn/-, from which in June 2005, 30bn/- was distributed among Umoja Fund unit holders by offering a 30 per cent government discount during the initial sale.
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