UNIVERSAL TRADERS SACCO Tuesday, November 23, 2021
By BONIFACE MULU
The Universal Traders Savings and Credit Cooperative Society Limited is a one family comprising four counties namely Machakos, Kitui, Embu and Makueni.
Making the remarks, the society’s chairman, Fredrick Ngumbi, also announced that the society’s current membership is about 80, 000 from across the four counties.
The four counties that are within the Eastern Kenya’s region, are among the Kenya’s 47 counties. “Our sacco is non-political. A member can’t hold any of the society’s leadership positions when he or she is in politics,” the chairman said.
He was speaking to the society’s Kitui Branch members during a member education day organised for the members by the society at the Kitui Agricultural Training Centre on Tuesday, November 23, 2021 where he was the chief guest at the function.
The event was attended by hundreds of the sacco members. Ngumbi highly thanked the members and the society’s managers and directors for their good work towards progressing the organisation.
You are the supreme authority for the sacco, the chairman told the members. “You are in the right institution. You are in the right sacco,” he further told them. “The delegates are now the people we (the board) are meeting in the sacco’s annual general meetings,” the cooperator announced. Regarding the education for the members, Ngumbi said:
“The education is one of the pillars for the sacco. The education does not become aged. It is the people who become aged”.
And regarding the loans, the chairman told the members that the loan must be paid.
“We need the loans be paid in order to have other people benefit from that money,” the sacco leader said.
In his speech, the society’s Chief Executive Officer Dominic Mutunga announced that through their society’s 2021-2025 strategic plan they are planning to open the Mwingi branch and Mutomo branch in Kitui County.
Currently, the sacco that was started in 1991 and whose head office is in Machakos Town, has six branches namely Embu, Kitui, Wote, Tala, Kathiani and Mlolongo. The retired Anglican Church of Kenya (ACK) Archbishop Benjamin Mwanzia Nzimbi also addressed the event.
Nzimbi is one of the Universal Traders Savings and Credit Cooperative Society’s pioneer members. He said it is good to convene a training for the people. “This meeting is so important. We come together so that we can achieve our objective,” he said.
When we are here we are happy and our unity is doing us good,” the cleric said. “We need to be actually thinking about our organisations. Let us be strong members of our sacco. Let us not go back,” he said. Nzimbi, who is a teacher by profession, said the adults want to learn through comfortable and free atmosphere. “They don’t want to be threatened,” he said.
The function was also addressed by the society’s Kitui Branch Manager Michael Nzuma, the society’s supervisory committee chairman David Mukava and directors Amos Mutuku (Kitui branch) and Ruth Mutheu Mwanzia (Wote branch) among others.