Saccos want Financial Cooperative Act revised

Ministry of Trade says it will facilitate the revision of the Financial Cooperative Act of 2011 to conform to the current situation following calls from the Savings and Credit Cooperatives Organisations (Saccos).

Speaking during the Dwangwa Sacco Annual General Meeting in Nkhotakota on Tuesday, the ministry’s registrar of cooperatives Wiskes Mkombezi said representatives from his ministry, Malawi Union of Savings and Credit Cooperatives and the Reserve Bank of Malawi (RBM) will be meeting next month on the same.

He said Saccos feel that the reporting requirements and registration processes in the Act were hampering their growth.

Said Nkombezi: “You have to be aware that before operating, Sacco’s need to register with the Ministry of Trade and be licensed by the RBM. What the Saccos want is a provisional period where they can operate before registering so that they can grow capital, among others.”

“We want to look at those areas and see how they can be changed to foster growth of the Sacco movement. At the end of that process, we shall have a new Cooperative Development Policy, once that policy is approved, we will go into looking at the Cooperative Society Act and how it should respond to what the new policy is saying.”

Dwangwa Sacco outgoing chairperson Alex Lwesya advised Sacco members to harness saccos and tap on existing opportunities.

He said during the year under review, registered a K15 million surplus despite the harsh operating environment worsened by the Covid-19 pandemic.

He said restructuring of some companies due to the Covid-19 pandemic had affected the operations of their sacco as some members closed their accounts.

Dwangwa Sacco has over 3 900 members both from public and private sectors in Nkhotakota, Dowa and Ntchisi.

During the AGM, Phillip Mwanza was elected new chair of the Sacco.