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By Steve UMIDHA
Harambee Sacco’s total revenue earnings for the full year 2022 hit the Sh5 billion mark for the first time in the firm’s history, according to its latest financial filings.
Data by the society for the period ended December 31, show that total revenues before tax soared to Sh5.01 billion last year from the Sh4.22 Billion it announced a year earlier – an all-time high for the 52 year –old savings and cooperative society (Sacco).
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It attributed the improved performance to increased loan uptake, institutional strengthening, and electronic payment systems, noting that it was now making all its transactions via its mobile money platform, M-cash.
“We now have 98 percent of our services and products available on the self-service mobile platform. Our endeavor going forward is to ensure that Harambee Sacco is 100 percent mobile operated and we are continually putting systems in place to achieve this set goal,” noted Harambee’s Chief executive George Ochiri.
Similarly, Sacco’s total assets grew to Sh37.01 billion in the period under review from the Sh34.6 billion it recorded in a similar year in 2021.
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“We broke the ceiling with our performance. With “Mteja Kwanza” as our overriding theme for FY2022, the Society was able to deliver a robust financial performance driven by the fact that we had put our members at the forefront of our business and operational focus,” Ochiri said.
The Sacco’s operation costs increased from Sh2.1 billion in 2021 to Sh2.5 billion last year due to higher financial expenses, personnel expenses, and administrative expenses such as salaries and remunerations.
Harambee which holds its 52nd annual delegates meeting (ADM) today, seeks to recruit 15,000 additional members, to increase annual revenue to Sh6.5 billion and raise its total assets to Sh40 billion this year as part of its 2021 – 25 Strategic growth agenda.
It also announced, during the year, Sacco added 6,276 new members from 4,398 in 2021, aiming to raise its total membership to 86,502 by 2025.
“It is against this economic growth projected backdrop, that the Board and the Management are working on ways and systems that will see Harambee Sacco move a notch higher in 2023, a factor whose ripple effect will ultimately be felt by the shareholder cum customer,” said its national Chairman Macloud Malonza.
Harambee Sacco Society lost 17,730 members in three years to 2021 which led to a Sh4.82 billion payout that year, although a majority of those exits were attributed to retirement within the civil service cadres.
Industry realignments
Meanwhile, a technical committee comprising various financial experts, Chairpersons, and CEOs of savings and cooperative societies (Saccos), will rely on advisors cherry-picked by the World Bank to fast-track the development of a framework allowing Saccos to lend to one another, the committee’s chairperson Evans Kibagendi confirmed last week.
In an interview, Kibagendi revealed last Thursday that the board had indeed acquired two consultants from the global lender to guide with procedures in setting up an organizational framework, a business plan as well as ICT know-how to drive the Central Liquidity Facility (CLF) for inter-Sacco lending.
CLF is ideally meant to improve the general financial stability of credit unions by serving as a liquidity lender to credit unions experiencing unusual or unexpected liquidity shortfalls.
“It is a model that was started in 2019 and now the World Bank has assisted us with two consultants, but we are also getting help from Sasra and the Ministry of Finance,” offered Mr. Kibagendi who is also the national Chairman of Hazina Sacco.
This comes amid sector concerns that the country’s public universities and tertiary colleges were still the greatest defaulters in terms of non-remitted funds owed to SACCOs, which amounted to Sh1.30 billion in 2021, 38.03 percent of the total non-remitted funds, according to Sacco supervision annual report for 2021 by industry regulator Sacco societies regulatory authority (Sasra).