The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Masaka, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Masaka Elders Savings and Credit Cooperative Society – SACCO Limited has lost at least 399.7 million shillings to fraud, a special financial audit has revealed.
An audit report by Felbright and Company auditors read before the SACCO’s special general meeting convened in Masaka has revealed that the microfinance institution lost the money between January 2016 and May this year.
The audit was prompted by a petition by a section of SACCO delegates to the Ministry of Industries and Cooperatives, in which they complained of suspicious financial mismanagement and manipulation of internal controls by the current board of directors.
Charles Kilibo, an auditor in Felbright and Company Auditors while presenting their audit findings on Monday indicated that they have established that the SACCO had been wrecked by serious governance weaknesses that created room for fraud and other habits of financial mismanagement.
He says that the SACCO was found to have been operating with a weak and divided board of directors who were also rocked in leadership struggles, hence the failure to secure members’ savings.
Kilibo explains that the money was lost to irregular transactions by SACCO board members and staff, high default rate and uncoordinated loans’ approvals and other suspicious cash transfers from the institution’s accounts.
The audit report has also indicated that at least 75 million shillings was also lost through Mobile money transaction debtor and some unscrupulous SACCO staff who were trusted to service members’ loans.
Kilibo explains that they established that many people were paying their loans through mobile money accounts of some staff who however could not transmit the monies to SACCO accounts.
The report has made recommendations to the Registrar of Cooperatives at the Ministry of Industry at Cooperatives to hold the implicated board members and management staff individually accountable for the money that was lost.
The auditors also recommended for immediate suspension of the SACCO board of directors and staff implicated in the report until the money is fully recovered.
But Margret Ntambaazi, the current SACCO board of directors’ chairperson has denied participating in the said fraud, arguing that they inherited some of these problem from the previous leadership.
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