Mbarara RCC directs probe over missing Shs 110mln for market SACCO

MBARARA, October 16, 2023 – Mbarara Resident City Commissioner, Lt. Col. James Mwesigye has instituted a team to investigate the alleged disappearance of Shs 110 million belonging to Mbarara Central Market Vendors SACCO.

This follows the petition by some of the SACCO members to the Office of the President, with the members also complaining of a sham elective annual general meeting (AGM) held last Wednesday.

According to Emmanuel Muhumuza, chairman Mbarara Central Market Association, the market SACCO leaders have spent nine years without holding an AGM,  which he said contradicts the Cooperative Societies (Amendment) Act, 2020.

Muhumuza said he petitioned the current City Principal Commercial Officer, Allan Buhanda who he alleges, connived with the market SACCO chairman Muhammad Nyombi to hold illegal SACCO elections that left most members in the cold.

“We were shocked that the Principal Commercial Officer could allow 35 members to represent about 600 SACCO members in an elective AGM,” Muhumuza said.

Shafat Kashaija, another aggrieved SACCO member said there is no way they could have allowed elections to take place without receiving performance reports of the former SACCO leadership.

“From 2014, we have never got any report, then how can you conduct an elective AGM without presenting to us an audit report, no chairman’s report, and no management report to analyse the performance of the SACCO for all that time,” Kashaija said.

According to Mwesigye, the issues of the vendors’ SACCO are beyond sham election. There are others issues; such as issues of accountability.

“To me, the problem is not the elections they held, my concern is about the finances of the SACCO. We are after the fraud allegation that money for the SACCO was extorted,” Mwesigye said.

The RCC said the SACCO was given Shs 30mln Emyooga funds, Shs 60mln presidential startup capital, and area Members of Parliament contributed Shs 20mln, yet this money is not accounted for.

“This is a SACCO of the market vendors which has been running for nine years and they have never held any annual general meeting as a SACCO yet their constitution talks of two general meetings every after two years. There are allegations that money including donations from the president [Museveni] has been swindled by a few individuals,” he said.

“This includes; Shs 60mln from the president, Shs 10mln from Hon. Robert Rukari, Shs 10mln from Hon. Tusiime Michael totaling to Shs 80mln plus members’ share capital that is unaccounted.”

Muhammad Nyombi, the former chairman of the SACCO refuted the allegations of embezzling the money, calling upon the members to remove politics out of the SACCO business if they are to grow.

“Some of the people who attended that meeting are not members and they are just playing political witch-hunt within our SACCO. Even those who petitioned to the RCC have loans they have failed to pay for the last five years,” Nyombi said.

Nyombi said the SACCO has been operating without committees, thus calling upon the members to fix the leadership gap.

“The SACCO had no loans committee, supervisory committee; most of the board members left. I only had two executive members and one committee member,” Nyombi said.

He said the Office of the President has a right to investigate the allegations and come out with a conclusive report rather than being fed on lies by some of the SACCO member.

Mbarara Central Market SACCO was registered in 2011, and, by October 23, 2014 it had a capital asset of Shs 23mln, loan portfolio of Shs 144mln and membership of 500 people.

Currently, it has about 600 members and total savings of about Shs 400mln, some of which members claim is missing.

https://thecooperator.news/mbarara-central-market-city-authorities-feud-over-revenue-collections/

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