Whereas most people find it hard to survive on loans, Elevanie Mukantabana, the proprietor of La découverte has shuttered the misconception and found herself fortunes on borrowed money. She started with barely nothing but now operates three cosmetics shops all estimated at to be worth Rwf100 million. One of the shops branded La découverte is located in the Union Trade Centre (UTC) in Kigali city. Mukantabana also plans to open up another shop around town as soon as she continues with the importation of products from Europe for her shops as well as distributing to others dealers. “The logic behind my success to expand with borrowed funds without the stress of repaying back has been GroFin. The company has not only offered me a loan but also been supportive in other business developmental aspects,” she narrated. “GroFin transformed my business proposal into a business plan, which I try to follow day-by-day. I now manage my business professionally, which has made repayment of the loan less stressing,” Mukantabana explained. GroFin is a financial institution with a financial lending instrument. According to her, contrary to the first loan acquired from one of the commercial banks, the bank never listened to any excuses. It also never offered any other developmental support or advice on how to utilize the loans. ”The bank only waited for its reimbursements at the end of every month,” Mukantabana said. Despite the success, after acquiring financial and business development loan, Mukantabana had earlier struggled with cosmetics to survive. The earlier initiatives started way back before the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. She used to travel to Europe for cosmetic products and supplied them while she also attended school. The business was halted by the turmoil. However, Mukantabana started again using her customers’ capital since the products had high demand. Ends
