Ten years after its foundation with President Paul Kagame’s support in order to enable teachers improve their economic and social welfare, the cooperative has 73,000 members, as of today.
Since its foundation, the cooperative is funded by the Rwandan Government. The Rwandan Government has targeted to finance the cooperative to a tune of Rwf30 billion of which RWF20 billion has already been given to the cooperative with another Rwf10 billion to be released in the next four years.
In 2022, the Rwandan Government will no longer sponsor the cooperative.
In an exclusive interview with IGIHE, the Director General of Umwalimu SACCO, Laurence Uwambaje said that the sponsorship of Rwf30 million given to the cooperative by the Government has helped teachers change their lives compared to times prior to its foundation.
She added that the SACCO will keep giving loans to teachers because from 2022, it will be a self-reliant cooperative.
Umwalimu SACCO Cooperative started with Rwf10,000 as the initial cost per share and a compulsory monthly saving of 5% from every member’s salary. Today, Umalimu SACCO Cooperative counts Rwf200 billion of loans which were given to teachers while the savings count to Rwf23 billion with the loans outside the cooperative being Rwf58 billion.
Uwambaje says that the profit the cooperative obtained is at the good level though a lot has to be done for the cooperative to thrive more and get more profit.
“In 2017, we obtained a net profit of Rwf 3.300 billion (taxes counted in). In this year, we expect to get more profit as we have already acquired a profit of more than Rwf2.5 billion in the only past seven months,” explained Uwambaje.
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The impression you get when you talk with some beneficiaries of the Umwalimu Sacco cooperative, you realize that their life was changed due to loans the cooperative has been giving them.
Priscille Mukaruzima is a teacher of English course in P1 and P2 classes at Kamashashi Primary School. She has been a teacher for 17 years now having worked with Umwalimu SACCO Cooperative for the last seven years.
Mukaruzima was given a loan of Rwf1.500 million in which she used to start a poultry business which earns her Rwf200,000 per month while her teaching salary is Rwf60.000.
Mukaruzima, a resident of Kamashashi Cell, Kanombe Sector of Gasabo District, says she started her business with 100 hens which have grown to 700 not counting those she sold.
She told IGIHE that she bought a land plot worth Rwf5 million in the money she got from her poultry business.
“At the first time, in the loan of Rwf1 million, I bought 100 hens and the second time, I was lent Rwf2 million which I used to buy other 400 hens. Now they have given me another Rwf4 million which I have not yet invested but I think of using it also in poultry business,” she recounts.
“From the poultry business, I earned a lot because besides the land area I bought, life changed in my household. My children eat well and study in good schools,” she said.
Mukaruzima rears hens which lay eggs and she says she can’t satisfy her eggs market. She has helped her two fellow teachers start poultry and some of her neighbors which she says she will keep doing.
Rent houses for teachers
Uwambaje says that loans given to teachers are different but they focus more on the rent housing loans.
“Fifty percent of the loans teachers apply for are rent related because most of the teachers own no living houses and now ½ of them have got rent loans. The teachers also ask for loans to start small business including agribusiness loans,” she explained.
Uwambaje reveals that there are teachers who withdraw between Rwf 5 and 10 million per month proving that the cooperative has turned some teachers into rich people. However, Uwambaje says that a number of teachers who engage in small-sized projects is still low because many are not confident in starting businesses.
Umwalimu SACCO gives loans to teachers on permanent contracts and based on their salaries and in case their contracts are terminated and they get fired, they don’t pay the loans.
There are teachers who start projects and lose and it becomes difficult for them to pay loans but this does not put the SACCO in the cooperatives among those with losses caused by unpaid loans because unpaid loans are on a 3.5% average whereas the law directs not to be more than 5% average.
Umwalimu Sacco trains members on better usage of loans and make them confident in starting businesses.
Today, countrywide, Rwanda counts 30 branches of Umwalimu SACCO with 235 staff.
Umwalimu Sacco owes a total Rwf2 billion debt to Rwanda Development Bank (BRD) and the OIKO Credit, a Netherlander Financial Institution. Umwalimu SACCO has applied for that debt six years ago when cooperative members asked for loans that were more than the savings they had in the cooperative.
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