Teachers’ cooperative ‘Umwalimu-SACCO’ has been able to recover at least Rwf1.2 billion from members who defaulted on their loans. The progress was shared during the assembly that took place last Friday. Laurence Uwambaje, the Director-General of the cooperative, told The New Times that they have over the previous year put in much effort to recover the loans to ensure the teachers’ lender can continue to grow to serve members even better. “We have implemented the resolutions from last assembly at 89 per cent including recovery the loans from defaulters,” she said. By the end of 2017, the cooperative had given Rwf49 billion in loans for different projects, especially in agriculture and construction sectors and personal loans while delays in repayment of loans totaled Rwf2 billion. She said that thanks to efforts put in recovering loans, their profits before tax amounted to Rwf5 billion this year. Uwambaje noted that measures have been taken to minimize the practice, including providing loans that members can afford to repay and having a system in place to track the defaulters. “The maximum loan is Rwf35 million to a member and the interest rate is 11 per cent which is lower compared to other financial institutions. We have to make sure we do not provide loans that are burden to members by also assessing if they have revenue sources to be able to repay the loan,” she said. Next year’s budget is Rwf114 billion, she said adding that they also target a profit of Rwf5 billion. The official unveiled that mobile banking system will have been launched by March next year so as to ensure proximity of the cooperative’s service delivery to members. Over 70,000 teachers in both public and private schools are members of Umwalimu Sacco. editorial@newtimes.co.rw
