By Amoto Dennis
The Garissa County Cooperative Officer Samuel Karanja has made a passionate appeal to youth and women in the areas to form cooperative societies in order to uplift their living standards.
Karanja told Sacco Review that the government has set up a sharia compliant regulations for Muslims in the banking sector.
He added that his office will soon embark on countywide campaign to popularize the cooperative movement.
‘’My office is ready with all the necessary assistance for the cooperative movement to sprout,’’ he said.
The coop chief further urged Bodaboda riders to register Saccos in order to benefit from loans and uplift their living standards instead of living from hand to mouth.
A Sacco review spot check in Garissa County revealed that there is adversity by Muslims to bank credit because of the position on loan interest payable to banks.
Most of them adhere strictly to the Islamic faith and are not aware of Sharia compliant loans.
“On that aspect many Muslims have been reluctant to form cooperative societies or take loans,’’ he said.
Mistrust is another problem because a section of Garissa residents believe that the cooperative movement is an import from other parts of the country.
Karanja said that Garissa, a county of nearly a million people has less than 100 cooperative societies, because they erroneously believe that loans are geared towards benefiting non locals.
Dismissing such false notion of misleadingh, the Garissa County boss urged the locals to embrace the cooperative movement and benefit from its gains.
He added that the drawback in cooperative movement is caused by locals’ love for dilal, middlemen, which prove to be more expensive in the long run.
Karanja said as much as the traditional Dilal system of operation has been ongoing for long, people have to change and adopt to more beneficial ways like joining cooperatives on order to grow the economy instead of living in the past.
