Lack of women in UWEZO leadership Irks Angina

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Operation Wealth creation (OWC) Deputy Coordinator Lt. Gen. Charles Angina, has decried the absence of women in the leadership of the UPDF backed UWEZO Cooperative and Investment Society.

UWEZO Sacco was launched in 2014 with an aim of promoting economic transformation among the officers and civilian beneficiary communities of the OWC program.

Angina’s concern followed the election of a new committee comprising Col. Godfrey Muwanguzi as the chairman Board Of Directors, Col. Francis Ongia as vice chairman, and Maj. Teddy Kavuma as the treasurer. No female representative was elected on the four-member supervisory committee which oversees the Sacco activities after Maj Susan Namyalo, who had been nominated, expressed lack of interest.

Angina stresses that Sacco’s miss out on government grants because of undermining some guidelines, arguing that the UPDF led institution should not be caught on the wrong side of the law my omitting women from its structures. He was presiding over UWEZO elections in Jinja district on Friday.

Angina further says that women are productive entities of society who should be fronted in the promotion of Sacco programs.

On his part, Muwanguzi says that the Sacco will focus on recruiting more members but stressed the challenge of mindset change among some of the Sacco stakeholders who rely on the institution to solve their financial challenges rather than future investment opportunities.

“We are working on recruiting more members so as to grow our institution. However, our efforts are ongoing to transform the mindset of most members who look at this Sacco as a short time financial problem solver rather than an investment platform,” he said.

UWEZO SACCO stands at a membership of 375 officers and 35 civilians with working capital of 600 million Shillings, 300 million Shillings in shares and 1.2 billion shillings in loans acquired by members between 2015 and 2018.

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URN