Search Results for: SACCO

In a closing speech at the annual general meeting of the Association of Microfinance Institutions of Uganda (AMFIU), Ugandan Minister of Microfinance, General Salim Saleh stated “Provision of agricultural finance is the actual bullet that will kill poverty“. The minister continued that before financial provision could aid the agricultural sector, the National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS) should provide advice and technical assistance to farmers to prevent crop failures and other problems that could cause delay or failure of loan payments, emphasizing “appropriate funding to worthwhile agricultural projects.”

Source: Daily Monitor.

During the 2007 Citigroup Micro-entrepreneurship awards ceremony in Kampala on January 10, 2008, State Minister for Microfinance, Caleb Akandwanaho announced that a new law regulating the activities of microfinance institutions will take effect in June 2008.

Source: Développement International Desjardins (DID).

The Support Organisation for Micro Enterprises Development (SOMED), a microfinance firm in the Kibaale District of Uganda was shut down in December last year while police claim they are investigating allegations of extortion, embezzlement and fraud. The company had been offering low-interest loans since 2004.

The Kenyan Government has established a USD 16 million (Sh 1 billion) fund, called the Women’s Enterprise Fund, to support microfinance institutions (MFIs) that lend to women and women’s enterprises. At the launch, the government announced the allocation of the first USD 8 million (Sh 500 million), with USD 3.4 million (Sh 215 million) going to established MFIs and the rest being spent on fund administration and providing 210 constituencies with money to disburse at a local level.

Source: The Standard (Kenya).

The central bank in Uganda, the Bank of Uganda (BOU), has warned that customers in the country’s Savings and Credit Cooperatives (SACCOs) may lose their savings, according to reports in The Monitor, a daily newspaper in Kampala. The paper says the SACCOs, which are types of microfinance institution, are unsupervised and unregulated by the BOU, which “has now washed itself clean of any responsibility for the actions of such institutions” and will not be able to intervene or provide compensation for those clients that suffer.

The alleged fraud of Front Page Micro Finance and three other microfinance firms in Uganda, as reported on MicroCapital on 21 September 2007 (see full story below), has been satirised in Uganda’s annual comedy event, the Grand Comedy Show. Staged by Theatre Uganda, the Grand Comedy presents a series of skits that mock current events in the country. Recently they have added a new skit to their repertoire called “Funk Microfinance” in which the alleged cheating microfinance institutions appear.

Ugandan Police are investigating four savings and co-operative credit organisations (SACCOs) suspected of fraud. They are alleged to be cheating their clients and making withdrawal of deposit money very difficult. The organisations are Front Page Micro Finance, Faster Micro Finance, Savings and Credit Cooperative Society Support Uganda Finance Limited and Stade Rugando Finance, all based in Kampala.

The Small Entrepreneurs Loan Facility (SELF) project, which is a wholesale microfinance lending project jointly funded by the Tanzanian Government and the African Development Bank has made loans to three Tanzanian savings and credit cooperative societies (SACCOS).

The Microfinance Support Center, the government owned limited liability company set up to aid in managing rural microfinance, has given a USD 1,117,318 re-capitalization grant to Post Bank Uganda, a government owned limited liability bank.

Ugandan microfinance company Front Page announced that they will carry on with their controversial job recruitment drive, regardless of government officials denouncing their methods. With 304 vacancies, the MFI is offering jobs exclusively to applicants who are members of the institution.

A government project began training rural chiefs to give them the skills to start and manage savings and credit cooperatives (SACCOs). The cost to the Ugandan Microfinance Ministry is estimated to be $1.8 million. In addition, the government budgeted $42 million for making loans to newly-formed SACCOs emerging from the project. SACCOs are non-profit, member-owned microfinance institutions.

Continue reading “Ugandan Village Leaders Receive Training to Form Savings and Credit Cooperatives”