FROM THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE’S DESK:

“Cooperatives: Your Ladder to Prosperity”

 These are hard times. Everyone in business in our country today is talking of austerity and more austerity just to survive. Long winded fuel queues, the forex mirage, sky rocketing cost of goods and services, erratic power supply and elusive rainfall patterns have become common jargon. There is so much uncertainty out there. Financial Cooperatives, just like any other business have to deal with these hard times. Financial Cooperatives survived the 2007/2008 financial crisis. At the height of the global financial crisis in 2008, it was the co-operative business models that exhibited the most resilience to the market compared to its capital centered counterparts.

The Auditor

By Joel Chigoneka

Ask anyone in the SACCO fraternity and most will say today’s financial cooperatives’ regulatory environment is the most complex we have ever seen. The newly introduced financial cooperatives law has attracted a lot of comments from players within the movement yet there seems to be no consensus on whether having such a regulation in place will strengthen or weaken the SACCO Movement in the country. As an auditor though, and fully aware of SACCO’s role in the country’s economic growth vis-à-vis the risks prevalent in SACCOs; a need for prudential insights becomes non optional.

Mr. Foster January Khembo is a man gifted with a teaching passion. Since 1982 he has woken up every morning to meet up a group of knowledge seeking students and contribute towards their educational prowess. He takes pride in witnessing the economic transformation in some of his former students who took learning seriously and are now reaping good fortunes.

“Some of my former students are Chief Executives, accountants, administrators, teachers and even doctors”, he emphasise. “I always feel enchanted seeing them drive good cars and living a comfortable life”.

Hilda Lukhere’s relationship with SACCOs started in a very unlikely manner. She vividly recalls her decision to accompany her husband to a Phindu Community SACCO’s annual general meeting in 2004; with no anticipation of how that would ignite her association with the financial cooperatives movement in the country.

 “I had nothing to do at home and just decided to escort him to the meeting in order to pass time”, she says.

At the meeting, she listened to a string of testimonies from proud members who capitalised on the SACCO to find pathways out of their financial despair. At first she demeaned the testimonies until a flourishing business lady she looked up to in her neighbourhood, stepped on the podium to share her experience.

“She was one of the few emerging successful business ladies at Phwezi Trading Centre. Her story of how a 13 thousand kwacha loan from the SACCO laid a foundation for an inter border business she was pursuing really encouraged me. It made me feel a complete loser who was failing to capitalise on opportunities in my community”.

Hilda left the meeting inspired, motivated and charged of hopes to give herself and her family a better future through the SACCO.

“I opened my account with the SACCO that very day and vowed to make myself a boss within a year”.

The road to the fulfilment of such an ambitious dream was not easy though, she struggled for 10 months to accumulate enough shares and better her chances of obtaining a substantial loan from the SACCO. Her plan was to begin with a grocery shop and then diversify into something more challenging and rewarding.

Ezekiel Phiri is a very ambitious, yet thoughtful man with an appetite for fine things in life. A teacher by profession, he has preferred to refuse his meagre salary choke his dream of living an above average life.

“I value class and I am a man who strongly believes in eminence”, he says to stress his choice for fineness.

Clad in a black designer suit, a white shirt with a matching blue stripped neck tie, one can easily mistake him for a company chief executive. This kind of dressing substantiates his claim for an above average life. However adding to this, unlike any other ordinary teacher, he swims in the comfort of driving a Toyota Mark 2. 

“Everyone says I am a very exceptional teacher. Not only do I dress decently, I also drive”, he jokingly says.

Asked how he is able to live beyond his salary and sustain such luxuries, he quickly attributes his comfortable life to his affiliation with SACCO.

“I have been a SACCO member since 1998. My list of achievements, owing to my SACCO membership, is very long”, he points out.

When Eunice Kendy Chipesa Kamanga picked up a job with Riverside Private School in Nchalo, she did not anticipate making Chikhwawa her permanent home. Relocating from Blantyre where the weather is generally good, she found the climate in Lower Shire too hostile for her comfort. She almost changed her mind. 

“At that time, my former employer was still coaxing me to return to her school in Blantyre. I did not want to return considering the circumstances that led to my resignation but the unfavourable hot weather in Nchalo almost pushed me into accepting her request”, She says.

POINT BLANK

By Leroy Dickson Banda

ELECTIONS SHOULD ERECT HOPE

2012 is International Year of Cooperatives. And Cooperatives will be celebrated under the banner of ‘’ Our Time Has Come.’’  Financial Cooperatives (SACCOs) are by law expected to conduct Annual General Meetings (AGMs) by the turn of the first quarter, to ensure that shareholders have an opportunity to assess performance of their elected leaders, provide input in the SACCO’s strategies to ensure that the SACCO is there tomorrow to serve its members and the community at large where the SACCO is operational.

Pamene mabanja ambili akulephela kutukuka chifukwa cha kusamvana pakati pa bambo ndi mayi m’banjamo, ku Thyolo mu dela la Namsanya, banja lina la chitsanzo likusimba lokoma. Banjali lomwe ndi la bambo ndi mai Chinangwa, ndipo lili ndi ana atatu, limagwilila ntchito limodzi momvana , mokondana ndi mogonjelana ndipo izi zathandiza kuti pakhomo pawo pakhale pa mwana alirenji.

Bambo Francis Ladison Chinangwa amachokela mu mudzi wa Chimwanya, mfumu yayikulu Namseta mu boma la thyolo ndipo mayi Triza Chinangwa amachokelaso mu boma lomwelo la thyolo koma m’mudzi wa Namsanya, mfumu yayikulu Mchilamwela.