Operations of Pallisa teachers’ SACCO halted

By Lawrence Okwakol

Pallisa teachers SACCO which has a membership of over 600 teachers and a running capital of Shs. 800 million   had its business closed for two weeks.
The decision was reached in a consultative meeting chaired by Magidu Dhikusoka the Pallisa resident district commissioner held at Kyoga hotel over the weekend in Pallisa town after a lot of unbelievable irregularities were unearthed such as charging of 84% interest rate per annum, harassment of cooperators.continuous remission of monthly loan repayments after loan clearance and denial of dividends to members.
Caroline Atai the Walimu SACCO manager blamed the Pallisa teachers SACCO chairperson George William Okwana and Richard Olebo his manager for deviating from guidelines and exceeding the laid down interest rate of 15% resulting in frustration of cooperators .
Atai said the Walimu SACCO was an initiative by president Museveni who gave teachers 25billion to enable them engage in side economic activities like starting manageable enterprises such as poultry, piggery, horticulture at a monthly interest rate of 1.25%.
Dhikusoka said he called on the consultative meeting to iron out the problems tendered by the UNATU Pallisa chapter to his office.”Am running around with defaulters of youth livelihood program and Uganda women empowerment program not knowing president Museveni injected shs.350million to Pallisa teachers SACCO and the funds are not accounted for and beneficiaries are grumbling Am not going to accept the mismanagement of this funds and a committee must be instituted to establish facts and produce a report in two weeks time.
In her petition to the RDC,top management of Walimu SACCO,legal team of UNATU George Onyait the Pallisa district senior labour officer, Agnes Amoding presented a paper stating the frustration the Pallisa teachers SACCO had done to its members and how it’s run like a personal business.Amoding said teachers are regretting why they became cooperators and end up suffering.
“There are a number of factors affecting performance in Pallisa district schools but one of them is loan burden and it’s out of order to blame Agnes Lukendo the district education officer and her team “, Amoding said.
Simon Okituk said the leadership of their SACCO needed to be changed to bring harmony otherwise even with reports nothing will yield results.”The arrogance of Okwana is because he has retired and he is also tired and does respect D.E.O anymore because he wanted him to have been given a contract to continue as head teacher’, Andrew Emorut of Kaboloi primary school said.
However, Richard Mwebaze the UNATU national legal officer said the issue of over deduction needed urgent action and meeting all financial lending institutions operating in Pallisa like Letsgo,Bayport,See West Sanlam Platinum which are overexploiting teachers.
“These groups go to schools at break time, meet teachers and induce them the sign loan agreements in all pages they have marked x  and leave the rest of the gaps . I also blame my teachers for accepting to sign documents they have not internalized and also remaining without a copy of the agreement, “Mwebaze said.
Patrick Duchu the Pallisa district chairperson said he was going to instruct Donato Oola Olam to direct Francis Ideale the principal human resource officer to remove the Pallisa teachers SACCO code .
John Fondo a teacher of Kamuge primary school gave a testimony with supporting evidence of having saved shs.800,000 in 2018, got a loan of Shs.1,300,000 but so far paid 5,400,000 and still being penalized shs.2,500,000 for the alleged six month of default.
Okwana’s response of calling his members who attended the meeting as defaulters annoyed everyone.He said the SACCO has helped teachers a lot and he cannot be intimidated .
“My SACCO is doing well and audit reports show our performance .We are audited by the district auditors but a team the commissioner of cooperatives in the ministry of trade, industry and cooperatives,” Okwana said.

The committee which is to be chaired by Yusuf Menkere was tasked to produce a report for action in two weeks.