Kwania district officials have launched a teachers’ savings and credit cooperative organization (SACCO).
The SACCO, which will accommodate all 1,074 teachers of primary and secondary public schools in the district, was launched during a recent workshop on financial literacy education organized for headteachers at St. Margaret Primary School in Aduku Town Council.
Members will be required to pay Shs 20,000 in Membership Fee, and also buy shares at Shs 10,000 each.
The SACCO, which was opened with support from Germany NGO, Savings Banks Foundation for International Cooperation (SBFIC), hopes to inculcate a saving culture among the teachers.
Kwania Resident District Commissioner, Salim Komakech, while presiding over the SACCO’s launch, pledged to support the fledgling society in its growth.
“We are going to do a lot of training to make the SACCO grow, and it will make the district exemplary in the entire Lango,” Komakech pledged.
RDC Komakech also advised the teachers to embrace value addition initiatives and vowed to lobby for funding for such undertakings from donors, ministries, or NGOs.
He encouraged the Teachers’ Union branch officials in the district and the Education Office to work together to popularise the SACCO among teachers in all the schools with the aim of fighting exploitation by financial institutions which he said charge exorbitant interest on loans.
Meanwhile, Andrew Omunu, the Kwania District Education Officer (DEO), urged teachers to decisively implement the resolutions agreed upon in the formation of the SACCO to enable it to expand and succeed.
For his part, Geoffrey Akodo, the Apac district Uganda National Teachers’ Union (UNATU) Chairman, cautioned the newly elected SACCO leadership against personalizing the SACCO.
“You are aware that Apac Teachers’ SACCO had a lot of issues. The headteachers who were elected as SACCO leaders personalized it and swindled all the funds disbursed to it by the government. I ask the Kwania Teachers’ SACCO leaders to be more transparent and accountable; don’t personalize the SACCO,” he said.
Akodo also rallied the SACCO members to embrace commercial farming as an alternative source of livelihoods rather than depending entirely on their salaries.
The interim committee elected to kickstart the SACCO’s operations includes Patrick Odongo, the Headteacher of Aboko Primary School as Chairperson, deputized by Claire Awor, Headteacher of Aporwegi Primary School.
Richard Kenneth Ayo, the Headteacher of Punoatar Primary School was voted Treasurer while James Ojok, the Headteacher of Itekiber Primary School, was elected unopposed as the SACCO Secretary.
Other headteachers elected as members of the interim committee include; Toga Francis, Joy Okello, Molly Ajwang, William Okok, Sylvester Omara, and Robert Odur Okello.
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