The recent move by Umwalimu Sacco, a teacher’s saving and credit cooperative, to establish and decentralize the cooperative’s operation, will also help in guiding bad borrowers, its General Manager has said. Joseph Museruka, noted that in addition to giving powers to the cooperative’s new committees to make independent decisions at the grassroots level, the mechanism will effectively support in ensuring that members who acquire loans pay. Recently, the cooperative held elections that saw each cell get a representative and three from each sector. The representatives are meant to coordinate with district and national level staff in ensuring a smooth running of the cooperative. “It is not that the cooperative has many bad borrowers, but just like any other financial institution the measures are very important in ensuring that members reimburse their loans on time as required and expected,” he said. Museruka made the remarks on Friday during the closing ceremony of a five-day teacher’s training that aimed at equipping them with entrepreneurial skills, cooperative management and the general knowledge in business. Officials say that although a big percentage of the teacher’s cooperative members are reimbursing their loans, at least six percent are said to be bad borrowers and this mechanism will also ensure that the number does not go up with time. Some of the teachers who attended the training said it addressed issues that have been contributing to their failure to service loans. “You find that some teachers are only good at academic work but not business, yet with such trainings, more teachers will be able to successfully engage in economic activities,” said Emmanuel Munyaneza, a teacher at Groupe Scolaire Runda-Isonga in Kamonyi District. The main idea for the government establishing Umwalimu Sacco was to give teachers loans at a very low interest rate so that they can easily engage in small businesses to supplement their salaries and improve their standard of living. The cooperative gives up to Rwf 15 million to its members. The training programme benefited at least 540 teachers across the country.
