Sacco members accuse Malawi gov’t of swindling their money

Members Savings and Credit Co-operative Society limited (SACCO) in Malawi’s northern border district of Karonga are blaming government authorities for the losses the incurred in 2013 savings which forced many members withdraw from the co-operatives.

The blames was made at Maghemo secondary school during Tikwele Community SACCO Annual General Meeting which was revealed over that government owes over 100 million kwacha of SACCO in 2013.

“Malawian government was supposed to give us seven million kwacha every month because they [deduct] salaries of SACCO members who have a loan with us but the whole 2013 we haven’t received our money yet,” said SACCO’s northern religion Director Kennedy Moyo.

Paramount Chief Kyungu calls on government to give people back their money
Paramount Chief Kyungu calls on government to give people back their money

Adding that “as of now the government is owing over 100 million kwacha for northern religion SACCO only which is a big loss to us and because of this many members have withdrawn their membership because we fail to give loans to our members and even to give them their money which is a threat to us because in long run if government will continue holding our money our SACCO can die,” Moyo lamented.

He further said that SACCO management and Teachers Union of Malawi tried to talk to government to give back the money but they are receiving no respond.

“We have tried to talk with government on this issue several times to at least give us our money but till now we have no respond. For this reason the whole northern religion SACCO members have agreed that we have to demonstrate on 12 May 2014 to give our complaints to Ministry of Education to show them that what they are doing is negatively affecting us,” said Moyo.

“We will not do this on our own but the Teachers Union of Malawi will lead us to give our petition to Ministry of Education offices in the north because the government is holding peoples salaries and with this delay SACCO is losing its business because we are un able to do our services of buying and selling money,” said Moyo.

Malawi Union of Savings and Credit Co-operatives Limited (MUSCCO) Northern Religion Director Ezekiel Thindwa said the government act is affecting them as mother body of savings in Malawi.

“MUSCCO have tried to talk with government that they should give back the money to SACCO but it seems government is taken that for granted that is why we support the idea that SACCO members should demonstrate on 12 May because we hope this is the only way that the Government will understand that people are suffering in their community because of the money they are keeping and maybe they can do something very fast to arrest the situation,” said Thindwa.

Meanwhile, Paramount Chief Kyungu who was the guest of honour pleaded with government to give back people’s money.

“Malawian government should give back people their money if they want to excise good governance because SACCO members help their families and do different developments with the same money so if they are not given their money which means the Government is denying development in Malawi,” said Kyungu.

Adding that “in other ways we can say Malawian government is not considering the welfare of its people and am not happy with it because my people in Karonga are also affected with the delay and their developments have gone down because of thing they don’t know.”

Follow and Subscribe Nyasa TV :

Sharing is caring!

Follow us in Twitter
15 Comments
newest
oldest most voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Read previous post:
May 20 your careers might end: Letter from Sapitwa

Finally we all agree, the debates have not told us anything new and there are strong suggestions either to cut...

Close