IBANDA, March 18, 2026 — ISSIA SACCO has recorded what Board Chairman Chris Boonah described as a period of “tremendous growth”, even as the leadership warned members over rising dormant accounts and loan defaults.
The revelations were made during the institution’s 20th Annual General Meeting [AGM], held on Thursday at Kihumuro Gardens in Ibanda Municipality, which also culminated in the official commissioning of the SACCO’s multi-billion-shilling head office.
Boonah reported that membership rose to 39,182 in 2025, up from 36,360 in 2024. Share capital grew from Shs 2.23 billion to Shs 2.48bln, while total savings registered a sharp increase from Shs 19.10bln to Shs 25.25bln.
The loan portfolio also expanded significantly, rising to Shs 25.33bln from Shs 20.59bln the previous year, while surplus increased from Shs 1.77bln to Shs 2.46bln.
“The SACCO realised growth in each of the performance indicators as indicated; we registered development in these areas compared to last year,” Boonah said.
However, he noted that this growth was overshadowed by a portfolio at risk [PAR] of 14 percent, far above the industry standard of 5 percent.
To address the challenge, Boonah proposed intensified supervision and a comprehensive review of the institution’s bylaws to align them with the Cooperative Societies [Amended] Act, 2020.
The meeting also sparked debate on how to attract new members while retaining the current base. One member argued that the SACCO should clearly distinguish between member education and marketing.
“We can train people to join our SACCO,” he suggested, noting that focusing only on training existing members limits the institution’s reach.
Delegate Evas Kentaro echoed the need for grassroots mobilisation, citing other SACCOs that have succeeded through regular engagement with members.
“We should not only wait for a year to take trainings to the zones. Let’s always visit members often to look at the challenges they face … rather than waiting for their accounts to turn dormant,” she said.
The Chief Guest, Ivan Asiimwe, General Secretary of the Uganda Cooperative Alliance [UCA], challenged the board to apply what he called a “mathematical approach” to interest rates.
“If you find the interest is very high compared to your competitors, you go back and work backwards to your variables,” Asiimwe said.
“If you have been renting a building of Shs 10 million, migrate to one of Shs 1 million. If you have been using ten loan officers, use a computer and reduce the number to minimise costs,” he added.
He also praised the SACCO’s asset growth, which rose from Shs 27bln to Shs 34.9bln in just one year.
“The SACCO is growing at a terrible speed,” he noted, while cautioning that the opening of new branches must be backed by rigorous cost-benefit analysis.
General Manager Felix Mugisha clarified that the SACCO’s primary mission remains the provision of financial services rather than real estate development.
“Our mission is not to construct buildings but to save and give loans to members to develop themselves,” he said, explaining that the new head office was a necessary renovation of a structure dating back to the 1990s.
On the issue of inactivity, Mugisha revealed that the board has hired marketing and sales agents specifically to reactivate dormant accounts.
“We shall give them lists of those dormant accounts … then we give them a commission on every dormant account they activate,” Mugisha explained.
He added that accounts are classified as dormant after six months of inactivity.
“When you spend six months without using your account, we make it dormant. Our cashier cannot make a transaction on it until you go to the branch manager to activate it,” he said.
The 20th AGM concluded with the election of a new Board and Supervisory Committee [SUPCO], followed by the official ribbon-cutting ceremony to commission the new head office building for the SACCO in Ibanda Municipality.
https://thecooperator.news/ibanda-cooperative-lays-plan-to-export-coffee/
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