Nyaruguru district: Agents of Umurenge Sacco complete training

70 agents and managers of Umurenge Sacco − a savings and credit cooperative at sector level – across Nyaruguru district, Southern Rwanda, on Tuesday completed a two-day training workshop on how to best manage micro finance institutions like Sacco (savings and credit cooperative).

The trainees, five per each sector’s Umurenge Sacco, hailed from Nyaruguru’s 14 sectors and were of three categories: the board of directors, the board of supervisors and agents in charge of loan delivery.

According to Gad Mukiza, head of investments and cooperatives in Nyaruguru district, the workshop helped fix some malpractices that had become rampant in the day-to-day management of Umurenge Sacco.

“Some of the supervisors could spend the whole term [three months] without assessing the working of Umurenge Sacco, yet they are requested to do so on a monthly basis”, Mukiza said.

Mukiza added that loan-delivery agents were not properly examining whether loan applicants fully meet the criteria and the repercussions, he noted, could resurface when loans could not be paid back correctly.

Umurenge Sacco clerks are normally public employees and therefore paid by the Rwandan government. But as Mukiza pointed out, these employees did have a problem in making unjustified spendings.

“They had a problem in planning. But they have now understood that they have to plan for everything including transport and airtime fees…just having a budget for all their spendings”, he said.

For Solange Mukamana, vice president of Umurenge Sacco in Mata sector, the workshop has been an eye-opener.

“I have now to make sure that we put our house in order from the top leadership of our Sacco. Being accountable for everything we do and check if the loans are paid back properly”, said Mukamana, whose Sacco has an estimated 3,500 members.

Umurenge Savings and credit cooperatives started in 2009 after a countrywide research showed that 21 per cent of Rwandans were, by then, working with banking institutions. The Rwandan government then initiated Umurenge Sacco to help people interact more with micro finance institutions and combat poverty.