KUSCCO Reaffirms Commitment to Accountability and Transparency for Sustained Growth of the Cooperative Movement

For the past 50 years, the Kenya Union of Savings and Credit Co-operatives (KUSCCO) has served as the umbrella body for SACCOs across the country. At the heart of our work is a desire to see the cooperatives movement prosper, and this is what drives our mandate to promote cooperatives through advocacy and the provision of market-driven products and services to our members. Today, KUSCCO has well over 4,000 members who actively participate in decision-making and they collectively shape the direction of our Union. Indeed, with our members’ support, we have grown from strength to strength, establishing our presence in five regions countrywide to increase our reach and accessibility.

KUSCCO was registered on 19th September, 1973, under the Cooperative Societies Act, and has continued to operate within the existing legal framework governing our sector ever since. We are committed to the values of transparency and accountability, and have always encouraged our members to hold us to account at every step of this journey. Our duty to safeguard members’ deposits is not only sacred, but is paramount to the public trust we have established over the years. To this end, we are committed to upholding the highest standards of financial integrity in our institution.

Our push for accountability has also seen us strengthen our collaboration with key policy makers, such as the Ministry of Cooperatives and MSME Development and the Commissioner for Cooperatives. We will continue abiding by the relevant existing laws and carrying out our mandate to lobby for improved legislation for the benefit of our members. As an advocacy body, we support the government’s initiative to amend the Cooperative Societies Act and the SACCO Societies Act to enhance governance and ensure sustainability of our sector. This includes operationalization of the Deposit Guarantee Fund, provision for the shared services platform and the outlining of regulations for deposit-taking Unions and how the deposits are invested.

We wish to reassure the public that all activities undertaken by KUSCCO are in service of our core mission, which includes the provision of market-driven products for our esteemed members. Subsidiaries operating under the KUSCCO umbrella exist for this sole reason. Additionally, they have robust leadership structures and resources, and we will continue playing an oversight role to ensure that we are meeting members’ needs to the highest possible standards and operating within applicable law.

Finally, we are happy to have played our part in the continued growth of the SACCOs sub-sector. Over the past year, member deposits crossed the Ksh 1 trillion mark for the first time. Indeed, upwards of 14 million Kenyans are members of cooperatives, illustrating a clear vote of confidence in SACCOs as one of the most popular investment vehicles today. In addition to this, SACCOs have spurred the growth of other sectors such as housing, agriculture, health and real estate, cementing our place as key drivers of economic growth. We encourage more Kenyans to invest and save in SACCOs, and assure them that KUSCCO will retain its place at the forefront of the sector’s prosperity, ensuring their voices are heard and our collective impact is felt. Together, we are confident that we will take the cooperative movement to unprecedented heights.