Nakuru County is encouraging its employees to join SACCOs in a bid to acquire financial empowerment and inculcate a saving culture.
The County’s resource mobilisation team is engaging various groups for empowerment workshops aimed at equipping them with knowledge on joining savings societies and the benefits available to them.
In an effort to recruit employees into the Sacco movement, the County Resource Mobilisation team, led by Chief Officer Alice Abuki, convened a meeting with Community Health Promoters (CHPs) so as to empower them on the benefits of joining Saccos.
During the forum, the Department of Trade provided an update on the formation of CHP SACCOs. This activity, conducted with the Department of Health, has already covered 85% of Community Health Units.
The SACCOs will facilitate CHPs’ access to the County Enterprise Fund and other mechanisms available to aid economic development and therefore enable them to reap maximum benefits from the cooperative kitty.
The initiative will also enable CHPs to access various development programmes domiciled in Departments within the County Government.
Ms. Abuki told the participants that the County was engaging other development partners with a view to designing products that will contribute technical and financial support to empower CHPs.
She urged participants to engage the Cooperatives Department to access affordable funds and encouraged families to have their youth join Vocational Training Centres as well as utilise the Ajira Digital Hub at Menengai Social Hall.
In her remarks, County Director of Cooperatives Josephine Ngandu encouraged the participants to embrace SACCOs, as they help people to cultivate a savings habit and an investment culture besides enabling them to borrow loans.
She added that SACCOs offer financial services that include savings and loans, among a host of other credit facilities.
Ms. Ngandu noted that regularly saving with a SACCO enables one to cultivate a culture of financial discipline and therefore enables one to build a financial safety net for future needs such as education, healthcare, or other unforeseen emergencies.
She noted that unlike other large financial institutions, Saccos remains focused on offering personalised products geared towards achieving specific goals of their members and have tailor-made services to ensure members experience a feeling of ownership.
SACCOs are a source of financial empowerment and offer a multitude of benefits to individuals seeking a secure and prosperous financial future.
Some of the common benefits of joining a SACCO include access to affordable credit, whereby members can access loans at competitive interest rates that are lower than those offered by commercial banks and institutions, as well as the payment of dividends.
By Jane Ngugi
