Pala-Okeyo (1988) asserted that the ability of WGs to attain its objectives was
reduced by conflict between the member’s immediate individual needs and the group’s
capital formation targets. The present study tried to find out whether there exists such
conflict and its effects on project success and sustainability. Malcolm et al. (1998)
studied the middle women profitable banking through on-lending groups using data
from Kenya and India. In Kenya, they found that merry-go-rounds are common in
many areas. They concluded that this was a fertile ground for the development of
on-lending groups as retail marketing links for banks. Interestingly, they showed that
poor people can be good bank customers as savers and borrowers and those banks can
reach them through on-lending groups. Surprisingly, they argued that illiteracy did not
stop on-lending groups from succeeding since illiterate people more often remember
facts and figures than those who rely on records. However, they found out that security
requirement effectively disqualified poor people or their groups from borrowing from
financial institutions. In this study the question of credit availability was examined in
depth in an effort to find out how it affects WGs project success and sustainability.