Financial support for the boda boda sector through the hustler fund

The Kenya Kwanza government ran its campaign with the promise of a transformative economic model – the “bottom-up” approach. This led to the birth of the Hustler Fund, which set aside Sh50 billion to provide cheap credit to micro and small enterprises.

• The Hustler fund was launched in 2022. However, the fund has not worked as expected, as concerns have been raised over individuals and groups not being able to access reasonable capital from the fund. This is especially the case for small businesses such as those from the boda boda sector, as the fund is not viewed as a reliable capital source. 
• According to the Government Delivery Unit (GDU), the hustler fund has established a behavioural credit scoring system that rates all the 25 million beneficiaries thereby providing an opportunity for borrowers to access higher loan limits of up to Ksh.150,000.
• However, following audit concerns last year, it was clarified that the fund had been allocated Ksh20.2 billion for the previous financial year.
• In a bid to increase access to financing the fund received an additional  Sh300 million allocation for the 25/26 financial year.