Arua City Emyooga SACCOs urged to be audit ready

ARUA– Arua City authorities have warned Emyooga SACCO leaders in the city not to run away but instead prepare for the planned audit of their business transactions s required by law.

The city officials say in the financial year 2021/2022, only 13 of the registered 54 Emyooga SACCOs were audited, an indication that most of the Saccos have not complied, which is against the law.

Though the dates for the audit have not been confirmed yet, the city authorities fear that if the SACCOs are not audited, it will worsen their performance, especially the current slow recovery of the loans advanced to different Emyooga groups.

The Arua City commercial officer, Jobel Ayiko says that the Microfinance Support Centre has selected Lobe and Co. Advocates to audit the Emyooga SACCOs for the financial year 2022/2023. He said the law requires the exercise to be completed by March this year.

“The result of the last audit shows many SACCOs had issues with records keeping, resource management, books of account management, and general administration of the SACCOs,” Ayiko said, noting that the planned audit aims at ensuring that Emyooga SACCOs recover from the past mess.

“Without being audited, you cannot hold annual general meetings [AGMs]. You cannot also elect new leaders and it will be hard to know the performance of your cooperative or SACCO,” the officer added.

Ayiko says most of the best-performing SACCOs have been audited. He cites examples of Arua City Women Entrepreneurs SACCO, Ayivu West Constituency Journalists Emyooga SACCO, Market Vendors SACCO, and Arua City Wielders SACCO, among others.

Meanwhile, the finance secretary Arua City Council, Moses Adriko has asked the SACCOs to prepare and mobilise for the planned audit, saying the SACCOs only have two months left to undergo the audit process. “The law provides that auditing will be conducted within 90 days, seriously, time is running fast,” he noted.

Ayivu West Constituency Journalists’ Emyooga SACCO is among the SACCOs prepared to face the audit process to be able to hold their AGM and elect new office bearers.

The SACCO chairman, Henry Lematia hopes the audit will help them grow. “We have recovered Shs 6 million of the Shs 15mln distributed to members as loans. We hope that the audit will help us grow. We hope to be audited so we can have our first AGM,” he noted.

Arua City disbursed close to Shs 1.7 billion to different SACCOs in the financial year 2021/2022 but none of the groups has been identified to benefit from phase II of the programme.

Emyooga Programme is a presidential Initiative on wealth and job creation launched in August 2019 as part of the broad government strategy targeting to transform 68 percent of homesteads from subsistence to market-oriented production with the overall objective of promoting job creation and improving household incomes.

The initiative is centered on 18  enterprises covering majority of the hitherto, financially excluded Ugandans engaged in similar specialised enterprise categories.

The eligible categories targeted are people, organised in SACCOs such as: Boda Boda SACCOs; Women Entrepreneurs SACCOs; Carpenters SACCOs; Salon Operators

SACCOs; Taxi Operators SACCOs; Restaurant Owners SACCOs; Welders SACCOs and Market Vendors SACCOs.

Other categories are: Youth Leaders SACCOs, Persons with Disabilities [PWDs] SACCOs; Produce Dealers SACCOs; Mechanics SACCOs; Tailors SACCOs; Journalists SACCOs; Performing Artists SACCOs; Veterans [Veteran Widows and Orphaned Children] SACCOs; and Fishermen SACCOs Elected Leaders SACCOs.

https://thecooperator.news/lira-taxi-operators-emyooga-sacco-on-growth-path/

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