Co-operatives and MSMEs Development Cabinet Secretary Wycliffe Oparanya has dismissed a critical report by the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) on the Hustler Fund, describing it as politically driven, elitist, and based on flawed data.

Oparanya said the KHRC report, which recommends the total scrapping of the Hustler Fund, was anchored on questionable research methods and failed to reflect the programme's achievements since its launch in November 2022. He questioned why the Ministry or the Fund’s management had not been engaged during the research, terming the process unprofessional and unfair.

“The title of the report explicitly betrays the whole purpose of the study,” he said, insisting that its findings were built on unreliable data, including figures drawn from only the first month of the Fund’s operations.

KHRC, in its report released on Monday, claimed the Hustler Fund lacks a long-term strategy to empower low-income earners and warned it is headed for failure.

The rights body said efforts to reform or redesign the Fund would be futile due to what it termed as political, legal, and structural defects, and recommended the government terminate the programme altogether.

But Oparanya sharply criticised that conclusion, stating that the Fund has already expanded financial access for millions of Kenyans.

He pointed out that more than 9 million Kenyans borrow from the Fund regularly, and over 5 million have exhibited strong repayment trends, qualifying them for higher amounts under the Fund’s “Bridge” loan product.

He also rejected the report’s claim that the Fund was launched with a capital of Sh50 billion, clarifying that Sh14 billion has been injected so far and has revolved into a lending portfolio of over Sh72 billion.

“The conclusions made are keen to sentence the Fund to death without trial,” Oparanya said, noting that KHRC did not provide a balanced view or proper engagement with key stakeholders.

He further described the findings as “lazily drawn,” adding that the Fund has already started onboarding high-performing borrowers into formal banking systems through partnerships with commercial banks. He referenced a Central Bank of Kenya report that ranked the Hustler Fund ahead of the Agricultural Finance Corporation in reaching farmers at the grassroots level.

“The NGO either doesn’t understand the credit market landscape or feigned ignorance to buttress their political motive,” said Oparanya.

The Cabinet Secretary also claimed the report was initially scheduled to be released on June 24, a date he said was deliberately chosen to coincide with the anniversary of the 2024 anti-Finance Bill protests, further suggesting a political motive behind the publication.

He concluded by urging the public to reject the KHRC narrative and embrace the Hustler Fund as a game-changing financial tool for low-income earners, cautioning against judging the initiative through “a narrow and malicious political lens.”