The CEO of UPDF’s Wazalendo Sacco Col Freddy Joseph Onata has said they are on course to achieve shs1 trillion in asset base by the end of the year 2024.
He observed that Wazalendo boasts of a membership of over 100,000, share capital of shs240bn, savings of shs445bn, loan portfolio of shs737bn and total asset base of shs959bn.
“The year ending 2023, we registered a surplus of 73.3bn and we are going to distribute 40% to the members. We have agreed to partially open the common bond to allow us to allow other organisations to come and join the SACCO,” Col Onata said.
He was speaking during the 18th Annual General Meeting of Wazalendo SACCO on behalf of the outgoing Chief of Defence Forces that was held at Gadaffi Barracks, Jinja .
“In our strategic plan, by 2025 Wazalendo SACCO should be a One trillion asset institution and I can guarantee that if everything goes well, we are going to hit that in 2024,” he added.
Lt Gen Peter Elwelu cautioned the Wazalendo SACCO leadership and members against being overjoyed by the successes they have so far registered.
“Run away from that syndrome of arrivism. This is the time you must work very hard because this is the time when the devil comes in and can easily disorganise us. So, now you don’t need to sleep! This is the time when some elements may be cropping in to try to take advantage of our celebrations. Most of the empires have collapsed because of that syndrome, arrivism,” said Lt Gen Elwelu.
“Please, leadership of Wazalendo, you have not arrived. Wazalendo members, we have not yet arrived so let us continue, work hard and make sure our members are happy and shouldn’t doubt us because it was not easy for these elders to convince us. Don’t let us down! The elders did their part and they are watching us.”
Lt Gen Elwelu commended the growth of Wazalendo despite the difficult start it had during its foundation years.
“It was very difficult to mobilize people because people had lost trust in the leadership of the army by that time. The soldiers and the junior ranks had lost trust in the leadership because they were all the time stealing their food, salaries; so no soldier trusted us,” said Lt Gen Elwelu.
He commended the former Chief of Defence Forces, the late Gen Aronda Nyakayirima for spearheading efforts in the formation of the SACCO.
“I thank the late General Aronda because he brought in a new perspective towards leadership in the UPDF. It is because of him that everybody said yes, now I see we have a new leadership and cadre ship which has gone to the original values of the NRA and now here we are, a great SACCO in the whole country and Africa because of General Aronda’s leadership,” Lt Gen Elwelu said
Gen (Rtd) Kale Kayihura one of the architects of Wazalendo SACCO said that the idea of the cooperative strategy was started in 1988 to address the welfare of soldiers.
“The biggest challenge because of the lack of resources was family welfare. Before that, we had no problem because we didn’t have families and pressures whether in the bush or the first years in government where we weren’t earning any salary, but gradually, pressures came.”
The meeting was attended by Generals, Senior Officers, guests from the cooperative society, junior officers, delegates and partners.
