KAMPALA – With over 40,000 members, CBS PEWOSA Nsindika Njake Sacco has taken on a brave step to digitise its operations to serve its members better.
The Mengo-based Sacco with subscribers coming from 18 counties traditional counties in Buganda Kingdom wants its subscribers from the grassroots and the centre to be served efficiently through digitisation.
While addressing the Annual General Meeting [AGM] for the Sacco at Lubaga in Kampala last Friday, the General Manager, Herbert Ssentumbwe said the digitisation is geared towards serving the members better, improving records but also achieving efficiency.
“We want to serve our clientele better, improve efficiency, and have sustained customer growth with transparency and trust,” Ssentumbwe said.
He said the Sacco had procured tablets that would be distributed to the member associations in all the counties that would be used to effectively communicate to the centre [headquarters] through a single channel and shared platform.
He said training sessions would be undertaken to help the treasurers of all the subscribing groups use the tablets, to interface with the centre but also enable other groups to monitor and learn what others do.
Ssentumbwe added that the move would promote digital financial inclusion in the face of financial turbulence but also boost the Sacco’s competitiveness.
He said, under the online saving and lending platform, it would allow quick and scalable integration, and flexibility and reduces manual management of loans and credit data.
With at least 447 groups, the tablets would be installed with financial applications that would provide an interface with the headquarters/centre to enable members effect remote transactions at any time.
He said some of the Sacco’s meetings would be conducted on Zoom App, directed by the centre, which he said will stop the costly travels by members and mobilisers.
Speaking during the AGM, the Commissioner for Cooperatives in the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Cooperatives, Mpakibi Robert praised the Kingdom for initiating an effort to uplift its people out of poverty, but also encouraging them to work.
He said it is such cooperatives that many cities were built in Europe and elsewhere, which shows the power of cooperating.
“Most of these big cities arose out of cooperating. The people came together, save resources and eventually build industries, got themselves jobs, and changed their economies.”
He challenged the leadership of the Sacco and the different grass root groups to exhibit democratic leadership on the true principles of cooperatives.
Also speaking during the AGM, the Board Chairman, Bbaale Mugera noted that the society has grown over the years, establishing other independent Saccos in Buddu, Busiro, and Kyadondo counties, a move that has strengthened the PEWOSA brand. The established Saccos are independently transacting in their areas of jurisdiction, although report to the Centre for patronage and guidance purposes.
The drive aims at creating 18 Saccos in all the traditional Buganda Counties, which would all come under one umbrella cooperative, already in existence, Abeeterekera Cooperative Savings and Credit Union Ltd.
In the arrangement, individuals cooperate at a parish level into groups, which are supervised under the leadership structure of Buganda but run commercially. These groups would later subscribe to the ssaza /county cooperative under the PEWOSA patronage, which is subsequently under Abeterekera Cooperative Savings and Credit Union Ltd.
The CBS PEWOSA Sacco witnessed a reduction in its share capital between 2018 and 2021, from Shs 1.12 billion to a low of Shs 802 million, after allowing county Saccos independently run businesses. This was later worsened by the Covid 19 pandemic, which saw downward trends in member savings.
Apparently running with 10 satellite stations across Buganda region, the Sacco runs on a total operating budget of Shs. 40mln, with a net profit in 2021/22 totaling Shs about 55.3mln.
The Mengo Based Sacco that also has 325 individual subscribers has a total current asset value of about Shs 4.2bln, with a total tax liability amounting to Shs about 45mln.
The Sacco membership has reportedly grown by 200 percent in the last two years with operational satellite branches in Kyadondo, Busiro, Buddu, Kyagwe, Mawokota, Kabula, Ssese, and Bulemeezi, representing at least 15 districts, with a shareholders fund amounting to about Shs 587.8mln.
https://thecooperator.news/kenyan-saccos-urged-to-develop-neobanks/
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