By Staff Reporter
Kiambu County has the highest distribution of Deposit-Taking Saccos headquarters outside the national capital, Nairobi.
According to the market regulator, the Sacco Societies Regulatory Authority (SASRA) report, the national commercial and administrative capital, Nairobi City County, hosts headquarters of 41 DT-Saccos while Kiambu has 15.
The Co-operative Societies Act under which DT-Saccos are registered requires every DT-Saccos to specifically state in its bye-laws the location of its registered head office.
The registered head offices inform the central nucleus of the general operations and activities of DT-Saccos.
Kenya has thousands of Saccos that only take in member savings but don’t take deposits.
It requires a sacco to have a minimum Sh10 million core capital during the period under review for it to qualify as DT-Sacco.
Core capital in the DT-Sacco legal framework is composed of the member’s shares, retained earnings, reserves and donations.
There are 176 head offices of the DT-Saccos distributed across counties.
The registered head offices locations of DT-Saccos are vital as they contribute towards financial inclusion and access in the country thus uplifting lives in the community.
Meru County is third with 14 DT-Saccos headquarters, followed by Nyeri with nine then Mombasa has seven.
Kirinyaga has six headquarters while Kakamega, Kericho and Embu counties have five each.
Nyandarua, Nandi, Uasin-Gishu, Nakuru and Kisumu have four each while in Kisii there are three.
According to the report, counties of Tana River, Garissa, Isiolo, Makueni, Mandera, Wajir and Turkana do not host any head office of DT-Sacco society.
However, the counties of Tana River, Isiolo, Makueni and Turkana are served by the branch networks of DT-Saccos from other counties.
Apart from the head offices, there were a total of 424 branch networks of DT-Saccos spread across different counties by December 2016.
The counties of Kiambu, Meru, Nyeri and Muranga reported the highest concentration of branch networks of DT-Saccos, with each accounting for 38, 37, 27 and 24 DT-Saccos respectively.
Though the City County of Nairobi has got the highest concentration of head offices (41), the established branch networks hosted within it are only 23, same as branch networks in Kirinyaga, Embu and Nakuru counties.
Garissa, Mandera and Wajir lack DT-Saccos branches.
Although there is no branch network of any other DT-Sacco in Siaya County, it hosts the head offices of Taraji Sacco Society.
The counties of Busia and Tana River registered one branch network each.
Taqwa Sacco Society Limited started operations in December 2016 and is based on Islamic interest free principles.
