Meet Nakalyango Amina, the Chairperson of Tukolere Wamu Busiika Maize Farmers’ SACCO – a group of 65 women farmers who have come together to achieve financial freedom. In 2020, they registered as a SACCO, and since then, they have been able to save up to fifty million shillings annually. This is a significant improvement from when they were still a group, saving only ten million shillings a year.
Their weekly savings oscillate between seven hundred thousand and one million shillings, and loan applications are bigger and disbursements are faster. A loan request of three million shillings can be processed in a period of only 2 to 3 weeks. As their savings grow bigger, they hope to do better in terms of speedily processing school fees and other types of emergency loans. Their capital is steadily growing, and their dream is to become a bank just like Finance Trust, Postbank, and Brac Uganda which are an inspiration, since they began as SACCOs as well.
The SACCO has a manager and an office, and their services are automated. They now have a savings account with Centenary Bank, and their SACCO has been connected to SACCONET – a cloud-based banking solution that provides convenient, reliable and cheap ways to grow savings, access credit and make payments for Microfinance institutions, village banks or savings and credit cooperatives of any size. Their SACCO Manager is a trained Accountant too.
The other good thing that has resulted from becoming a SACCO is that they are members/shareholders of Uganda Cooperative Alliance (UCA) – the body that unites cooperatives in Uganda. This automatically makes them eligible for the benefits that come with this membership. They have already got some information technology equipment from them on hire purchase.
