Teachers relief funds will go directly to individual SACCOs

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The executive director at Microfinance Support Centre, John Peter Mujuni has said that each teachers’ SACCO will directly get its money.

President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni pledged to avail 2 billion shillings to the revolving fund from which teachers could get loans to create side incomes.

Also, the Ministry of Finance has availed another 20 billion shillings which will be disbursed by the Microfinance Support Centre.

Mujuni told Uganda Radio Network-URN that although they would like to deal with an apex body that can organize the beneficiaries, they noticed that private schools don’t have a well-recognized national Sacco through which the money can be channeled.

The Uganda Private Teachers’ Union – UPTU and Nation Federation for Non-State Education Institution had already started to rally interested teachers to rally behind them if they needed to benefit from the fund.

The development had already created confusion among teachers who needed the loans to improve their livelihoods and recover from the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) lockdown which left them nearly unemployed as school owners failed to finance their payrolls.

In 2015, a similar incident happened as teachers under the Uganda National Teachers Union wanted their money to be channeled through their apex body as opposed to the microfinance support center. The matter created a standoff as several individual SACCOs in districts like Luweero which had been listed to have benefited distanced themselves from the funds.

However, in this particular case, the private school teachers seem to be disunited and lack a common position on the matter. Juma Mwamula, UPTU general secretary notes that it is at this weakness that the teacher might fail to benefit from funds.

“There is precident on this matter, we might end up getting challenges that happened to the UNATU. We believe that we still have time to organize ourselves and coordinate under one apex body so that we manage our funds,” Mwamula told URN in a recent interview.

Meanwhile, Mujuni says that they expect teachers to create and register SACCOs of not more than 30 people. Each SACCO will be qualifying to get a maximum of 30 million shillings. The microfinance support center notes that in the first round, most of them are expected to apply for 10 million shillings thus the available fund benefiting 2000 SACCOs across the country.

He however points out that the SACCOs will be strictly for active teachers and each member will be requested to have an appointment letter to his current station on top of other documents including the national identification card, registration certificate among others.

This is intended to prevent masqueraders from encroaching on the teachers’ money. To this effect, Mujuni says that they will be scrutinizing and visiting each group upon applying.

Mujuni further highlights that the center will be giving out the money at an interest rate of 8 percent per annum but teachers will receive it at no more than 9 percent. He says that the SACCO’s being small and preferably involving people in the same working area, they don’t expect that the SACCOs will incur more administrative costs.

Individual SACCOs that intend to benefit from the money will be requested to apply to the microfinance support center or its agents across the country and the center will as well soon roll out a program to induct newly created SACCOs on how they can manage their members so that they all benefit from the fund.

However, some teachers have lost hope in the fund as they expected that the promised relief was to come in the form of a grant rather than credit. John Bosco Mutaawe, a teacher in Wakiso says that a teacher who has not been earning for four months cannot take a loan and be able to service it.

“Currently, our needs are basic, food and rent, these are not income-generating. We wanted to get relief grants, not loans. Now,if I get that money and buy food for my family or pay rent, how will I payback? Many will get it but few will return it,” says Mutaawe.

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URN