Governor urges SME’s to apply for Covid relief loans

Small and medium sized enterprises in the Erongo Region are urged to make use of the Covid-19 SME Loan Scheme, to alleviate economic hardship caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Governor of Erongo, Neville Andre, in a press statement yesterday said the loan scheme is a joint effort by the Ministry of Finance, participating commercial banks as well as the Bank of Namibia.
“The national- and the economy of the Erongo Region continues to be pummeled by the impact of Covid-19.
Against this background that I want to introduce the availability of financial relief for Covid-19 affected SME’s through the Covid-19 SME Loan Scheme”, the Governor stated.
The loan scheme has a capacity of N$500 mil-lion and is designed to assist qualifying SME’s to stay afloat and to honour key monthly commitments in the form of operational costs.
After obtaining the loan, the business will get a repayment holiday of six months, where after the loan is fully repayable over a period of 54 months (at the prevailing prime rate).
The criteria to qualify for such a loan are as follows:
∙Applicants will be required to demonstrate by documented proof the business was adversely affected by Covid-19.
∙It has to be a legally registered business entity and this includes sole proprietorships.
∙The affected business’ annual turnover may not exceed N$10 million.
∙The applicant must have been in good standing with its commercial bank, prior to the onset of the Covid-19 (prior to 1 March 2020).
∙The applicant business needs to be registered with the Receiver of Revenue.
∙The applicant business must have insufficient borrowing capacity to fully fund its monthly operational expenses. It needs to be demonstrated by documented proof.
Furthermore, the following responsibilities will rest upon the business to which a loan was ex-tended:
∙Funds must be used to cover fixed monthly costs such as salaries/wages, rent, utility costs and basic working capital.
∙There is a repayment holiday of six months.
∙Repayment of the loan is scheduled for 54 months after the expiry of the six months repayment holiday.
∙The repayment is linked to the prevailing primary lending rate at the time.