Shift Media News 
By PATRICK JARAMOGI
KAMPALA, Uganda, June 30 [SHIFT MEDIA] For generations, Uganda’s teachers have been entrusted with shaping the nation’s future, nurturing children in overcrowded classrooms despite modest salaries and difficult working conditions. Yet away from the chalkboards, many have quietly depended on another institution for survival—their Savings and Credit Cooperative Organisations (SACCOs).
For thousands of teachers, a SACCO was never merely a financial institution. It was a lifeline.
It financed children’s education, helped families build modest homes, paid hospital bills during emergencies, and provided capital for small businesses to supplement meagre incomes. When government salaries arrived late or unexpected expenses struck, the cooperative often became the only affordable source of credit.
Today, that promise hangs in the balance.
Uganda’s cooperative movement is battling one of the greatest crises in its history, with many SACCOs crippled by fraud, weak governance, insider lending, poor financial management and chronic loan defaults. Across the country, teachers, civil servants, farmers and traders have watched institutions they trusted collapse, taking with them years of hard-earned savings and dreams of financial security.
Investigations over the past decade have exposed a familiar pattern. Missing savings, forged financial records, fraudulent lending, abuse of office and poor accountability have left thousands of cooperative members uncertain whether they will ever recover their money. In many cases, SACCO leaders have faced investigations over allegations of embezzlement, while others quietly dissolved after exhausting members’ deposits.
It is against this troubling backdrop that government has handed a daunting assignment to the newly inaugurated Board of Directors of the Cooperative Savings and Credit Union, popularly known as the Walimu Teachers SACCO Their mission is ambitious—and urgent.
Recover more than Shs11 billion in unpaid loans, revive hundreds of dormant teachers’ SACCOs across Uganda, and restore confidence in a cooperative movement that once transformed rural livelihoods but now struggles for survival.
The challenge extends far beyond one institution.
Government has invested Shs27 billion into Walimu Teachers SACCO with the hope that it would become a model financial cooperative capable of improving teachers’ welfare. Instead, nearly half of that investment remains trapped in unpaid loans advanced to members who have either failed—or simply refused—to repay.
Officials fear that unless the trend is reversed, Walimu Teachers SACCO could follow the same path as dozens of community cooperatives that have disappeared over the last decade.
The figures reveal the scale of the crisis.
Out of 385 registered teachers’ SACCOs across Uganda, only 39 remain operational.
For every functioning teachers’ SACCO, almost nine have either collapsed or become dormant, exposing a cooperative sector fighting for survival rather than prosperity.
Commissioner for Cooperative Policy and Development, Robert Bariyo Barigye, says reversing this decline will require far more than recovering outstanding loans.
Speaking during the inauguration of the new board in Kampala, he said the recovery exercise represents an opportunity to rebuild confidence in Uganda’s cooperative movement through stronger governance, improved supervision and greater accountability.
“The board has been tasked with strengthening supervision, improving governance and ensuring recovery of the outstanding funds lost through poorly managed SACCO lending,” Barigye said.
Financial experts say Walimu’s struggles mirror a much deeper national problem.
According to officials from the Uganda Microfinance Regulatory Authority (UMRA), insider lending, poor governance and widespread loan default remain among the leading causes of SACCO failure. In many distressed cooperatives, board members allegedly approved unsecured loans for themselves, relatives and politically connected individuals. Once the money disappeared, little effort was made to recover it.
The consequences followed a predictable pattern.
As repayments dried up, liquidity vanished. Members attempting to withdraw their savings were turned away. Confidence evaporated, new deposits declined, and many SACCOs eventually became dormant or collapsed altogether.
The problem is not unique to teachers’ cooperatives.
Uganda’s Emyooga programme, launched to expand access to affordable financing, has also experienced mixed fortunes. While several districts have recorded encouraging growth in savings and enterprise development, others continue struggling with loan recovery, allegations of ghost SACCOs, financial mismanagement and weak governance. Some districts are now required to recover a significant proportion of outstanding loans before receiving additional government capitalization.
Oversight has also lagged behind the rapid growth of the cooperative movement.
Although SACCOs have existed in Uganda for decades, meaningful prudential regulation only began in 2021 when UMRA started licensing and supervising qualifying SACCOs. Before then, many societies operated for years with limited external oversight, weak accounting systems and inadequate financial controls.
The Auditor General has also repeatedly raised concerns that the legally established SACCO Savings Protection Fund remains non-operational, leaving members vulnerable whenever institutions collapse.
Beyond governance failures lies another uncomfortable reality.
Uganda continues to grapple with a weak savings culture.
Financial inclusion studies show that many households save irregularly because incomes remain low and unpredictable. Borrowers frequently use loans to meet immediate household consumption rather than investing in income-generating activities, making repayment increasingly difficult.
Teachers perhaps understand this challenge better than most.
Despite carrying the enormous responsibility of educating the country’s future workforce, many continue earning salaries that barely meet everyday household needs. After paying school fees for their own children, rent, food and medical expenses, little remains for meaningful savings.
For many, borrowing has become a means of survival rather than investment.
When emergencies arise, repayment often becomes impossible, especially without alternative sources of income.
Recognising these realities, the newly appointed Board Chairperson, Steven Olinga, says rebuilding trust will be his administration’s first priority.
“We accept this challenge with full commitment. Our priority will be to restore trust among teachers, revive dormant SACCOs and ensure that public funds injected into the sector deliver value to members,” he pledged.
Walimu SACCO General Manager Caroline Atai believes recovering outstanding loans alone will not solve the institution’s problems.
She argues that stronger governance, digital financial systems and modern management practices must become central pillars of the cooperative’s revival.
“We expect the board to restore the SACCO’s credibility by reviving inactive societies, strengthening technology-driven financial systems and putting in place robust measures that will minimise future loan defaults,” Atai said.
Financial analysts agree.
Technology can reduce fraud through digital loan tracking, automated repayments, biometric member verification and real-time financial reporting. Such systems make it harder to manipulate records or conceal financial irregularities.
But technology alone cannot rebuild trust.
Without disciplined leadership, transparent governance, regular independent audits and members committed to honouring their financial obligations, experts warn that even well-capitalised SACCOs will continue to fail.
Government has now set an ambitious target of recovering 80 per cent of the outstanding Shs11 billion before March 31, 2027.
Success would represent more than a financial achievement. In short, they have to recover shs1billion per month for the next 11 months.
It would signal that Uganda’s cooperative movement still has the capacity to regain the confidence of ordinary citizens who have watched too many community financial institutions collapse under the weight of greed and poor leadership.
Failure, however, could deepen public scepticism and discourage future participation in community-based savings schemes.
For thousands of teachers whose livelihoods depend on these institutions, the outcome is deeply personal.
It will determine whether cooperative societies continue to represent hope, solidarity and financial opportunity—or become yet another painful reminder of broken promises.
As Uganda pursues greater financial inclusion and grassroots economic transformation, one lesson is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore: government funding alone cannot rescue a cooperative whose members no longer save consistently, whose borrowers refuse to repay loans and whose leaders fail to safeguard the trust placed in them.
Ultimately, the Walimu Teachers SACCO story is about far more than recovering Shs11 billion.
It is a defining test of whether Uganda can restore credibility to a cooperative movement that once lifted communities out of poverty but has increasingly become associated with fraud, unpaid loans and failed leadership. Unless stronger regulation is matched by ethical governance, responsible borrowing and a renewed culture of saving, experts warn that billions of public shillings will continue flowing into institutions whose greatest challenge is not a shortage of capital—but a shortage of accountability.
