MINISTER for Agriculture Hussein Bashe has encouraged cooperative societies under his ministry to take full advantage of growing financial sector in the country to transact business.

Bashe made the call here at the weekend when officiating at the newly-formed Co-operative Bank of Tanzania (CBT) shareholders annual general meeting.

He tasked the Registrar of Cooperatives to ensure all agricultural transactions, including cashewnut sales in southern regions, are managed through CBT which seeks to expand its reach with branches currently in Moshi and Tandahimba and new branches scheduled to open in Dodoma and Tabora.

Bashe also pledged that the government will make sure all money go through CBT as the main trading bank for all crops dealers and cooperative societies.

According to the minister, during 2024/25 fiscal year, projected payments for cashewnut farmers alone  is expected to be 1.2trn/- while combined input expenditure for lead cash crops: tobacco, Cashewnut and cotton stand at over 620bn/- and between 800bn/-900bn/- to be generated out of cash crops exports.

“These staggering figures prove that CBT has a strong business platform. An important point to note is that the transactions will be under CBT trade domain as no single crop buyer will be licenced without operating a main transactions account with CBT,” he said. 

In August this year the government approved a total of 5bn/- to be made available to CBT from state coffers to enable the bank meet the Bank of Tanzania regulatory requirements as by the time it had no sufficient liquidity to launch its operations.