The Government's plan to have more funds allocated to the Financial Inclusion Fund, widely known as the Hustler Fund, suffered a major blow on Tuesday after lawmakers declined requests for additional funding to the kitty by the Ministry of Cooperatives.
The developments followed pleas by the Principal Secretaries for MSMEs Development and Cooperatives, Susan Mang'eni and Patrick Kilemi, to convince the National Assembly's Trade, Industry and Cooperatives Committee to intervene following budget cuts to the programme.
The two officials, who separately presented their respective 2025/2026 estimates of revenue and expenditure, warned that key Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda (BETA) initiatives may stall if the funding gap is not addressed. ''The Hustler Fund requires Sh5 billion but was only allocated Ksh1 billion.
We request full reinstatement to meet the growing demand for financial products,'' said Mang'eni.
