Uganda grapples to repay debt as non-performing loans rise

After years of significant borrowing, many Ugandans are this year focusing on paying off their debts, which could slow the country’s medium-term growth.
Uganda’s economy binged for years on credit to finance everything from immovable properties, automobiles, risky businesses to new apartments. 

Now, Uganda must endure a protracted period of deleveraging—the painful process in which debtors divert income to pay off debts rather than investing and spending it.
The ratio of non-performing loans to gross loans for the banking sector rose from 4.8 percent in the 2020/2021 financial year to 5.3 percent over the course of the period, according to the Bank of Uganda’s (BoU) 2021/2022 annual report.

This was made worse by the operating deficit in the sector that was recorded for the fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2022, which increased to Shs233 billion from Shs42 billion the previous year.
“A rise in global interest rates, amid elevated inflation and monetary policy tightening by developed market central banks, negatively impacted the value of our sovereign reserve holdings,” Mr Michael Atingi-Ego, the BoU deputy governor, notes in the aforementioned central bank report, adding, “Furthermore, the Bank’s ability to take advantage of rising interest rates was curtailed by increased government foreign expenditure and intervention in the domestic markets to stem foreign exchange volatility.”

Private Sector Credit (PSC) growth increased to an average annual growth rate of 9.4 percent in the 2021/2022 fiscal year from 8.1 percent in the 2020/2021 fiscal year. Loans denominated in shillings and foreign currencies saw growth of 10.9 percent and 6.2 percent, respectively, from 9.9 percent and 4.3 percent over the same period.

Credit tightening
Despite picking up, private sector credit growth is still below the historical average of 12 percent prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the latest figures. This is consistent with the economic activity growing below trend, which led to lenders’ risk aversion and borrowers’ lower demand.

In spite of this, Uganda’s national treasury projects that the economy will expand by 6.0 percent in 2023/2024 fiscal year, up from the previous year’s 4.6 percent growth rate of 5.3 percent in 2022/2023.
“Uganda’s fiscal consolidation strategy has been effective in reducing public debt as a percentage of GDP, projected to be 47.1 percent as of June 2023, down from 48.4 percent in June 2022,” Mr Ramathan Ggoobi, the Secretary to the Treasury, said last week.

Many consumers are holding onto their cash and avoiding taking out loans. Even though the government is trying to persuade business owners to spend money, very few private businesses are actually investing.
To get their debts under control, local governments are also cutting back on spending on everything from roads to utilities and supplies while leveraging on property tax.

Some economists claim debtors who are preoccupied with repaying their debt are less able to fund novel projects that would increase the gross domestic product (GDP) growth by substantial margins, projected to be at 4.6 percent in 2023 by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

In the quarter to June 2023, commercial banks tightened credit standards for enterprises—specifically for entities involved in building, mortgage, construction and real estate, mining and quarrying, transport, and communication—and relaxed them for households, but only on a net basis, according to the lending survey for supervised financial institutions for the quarter ended June 2023.

With the exception of prime borrowers, for whom terms and conditions are predicted to be relaxed, banks now possibly anticipate increased demand for credit from both businesses and households on a net basis. This is set against the backdrop of the anticipated rise in the default rate on loans to both businesses and households due to recent parliamentary legislation, which may result in the suspension of funding from international organisations for some NGOs, increasing the level of non-performing loans as a result of job losses.

Non-performing loans soar
The results of the Central Bank survey revealed that most banks (93.7 percent) anticipate that their lending rates will largely remain unchanged, while 6.1 percent predict that rates will rise in the quarter leading up to September 2023.

The primary justification offered by banks for keeping their current lending rates is an alignment with the central bank rate (CBR), which they anticipated would not change over the next three months.
The BoU attributes the net tightening of credit standards to the move to reduce non-performing loans, increased default rates due to delayed government payments, and a slowdown in economic activity.

The latest bank to release its financial statement this week, Bank of Baroda, reported an increase in bad debts written off from Shs7.98 million in the six months to June 2022 to Shs759.25 million in the six months to June 2023. Its non-performing loans increased from Shs1.6 billion to Shs18.8 billion during the same period. The bank was, however, able to keep this under control by its increased core and supplementary capital from Sh515.9 billion to Sh645.3 billion.

According to Stanbic Bank’s half-year financial results, its customer credit loss ratio increased from 1.0 percent in the first half of 2022 to 1.8 percent in the same period of 2023. This means that the bank’s exposure to credit risk and potential loan losses increased during that period.

A credit loss ratio is a measure of the quality of a bank’s loan portfolio, and is calculated as the amount of loan losses it experiences as a percentage of its total loans. This gives one a sense of how the economy is doing.

Commercial bank lending rates increased in the first half of 2023, making repayment difficult in a tight economy, and this has lasted more than a year. This was kept high in part because BoU kept its central bank rate unchanged at 10 percent for more than three months, making commercial bank borrowing from the bank extremely expensive, raising the cost of borrowing among the population.

Pandemic after-effects
In an email to the Monitor, Mr Stephen Kaboyo, a reputable financial markets expert, explained that rising non-performing loans during macroeconomic shocks were also accompanied by rising capital costs.

“Most businesses are struggling to recover and adapt to the post-Covid environment. For those firms that were carrying huge loans exposures at the time, despite the credit relief programmes that were offered by the government, those firms are still finding it difficult to operate,” he said, adding, “The commercial banks on the other hand that are exposed are getting impatient  and putting up collateral for sale because of the direct implication of provisioning to cover the bad loans using shareholders’ funds.”

Some affected banks
Bank of Baroda, reported an increase in bad debts written off from Shs7.98 million in the six months to June 2022 to Shs759.25m in the six months to June 2023. Its non-performing loans increased from Shs1.6 billion to Shs18.8 billion during the same period.     According to Stanbic Bank’s half-year financial results, its customer credit loss ratio increased from 1 percent in the first half of 2022 to 1.8 percent in the same period of 2023.