The Kilifi County government has unveiled Cooperatives laws that will help regulate activities and operations of Savings and Credit Co-operative Organizations (SACCOs) in the County.
Mary Mkare who is the Kilifi County Director of Cooperative Development said that the new Kilifi County Cooperative Policy and the Kilifi County Cooperative Act once assent, will streamline the SACCO sector and cushion members from exploitation.
Mkare, who was speaking during the Imarika SACCO delegates meeting in Kilifi town said that the policy is ready for implementation to help saccos within the county perform better.
“At long last, the Kilifi County Cooperative Policy was adopted by the County Assembly and it is now ready for implementation. We are now talking of the Kilifi County Cooperative Act 2023 which was assented to by Governor Gideon Mung’aro and ready for gazettement paving way for the development of regulations,” she said
However, she argued that Kenya is making strides in aligning the Cooperative Societies Act with the 2010 constitution and that the bill was already on the floor of the senate after the National Assembly passed it.
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“Our national cooperatives law, the mother act, which is the Cooperative Societies Act has never been amended to be aligned with what is in the constitution, but strides have been made and the National Assembly passed the Cooperative bill and it is now before the senate signaling a new dawn in cooperative governance and regulations across the nation,” she said.
She lauded Imarika Sacco for its steadfast policies, prompt budgeting processes and market segmentation that has seen it grow from a Teachers’ Sacco to an all-inclusive organization with a membership pull of 170,000 members
“We now have a clear framework to monitor and evaluate whether the Sacco meets its goals and delivers tangible values to its members and this reflects a mature governance culture. Your growth has seen Imarika ranked at position 15 out of 177 SACCOs countrywide and the leading one in the Coast region,” she said.
Imarika Chairman John Ziro said that the entity was growing in leaps and bounds and that currently, the organization has an asset pull of Sh. 15 billion and disbursed Sh. 13 billion loans worth of loans.
“We’ve made progress and we have embraced technology as our members can now access their accounts through mobile banking and we have given loans to our members to a tune of Sh. 13 billion,” he said.
He added that the Kilifi County regulation on SACCOs was very necessary to streamline the sector.
By Nehemiah Okwembah
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