We need more civilian members in Wazalendo sacco, army says

The Uganda Peoples Defense Forces (UPDF) has said that they now want more civilian membership into the UPDF’s Wazalendo Sacco than the soldiers.

Lt Col Allan Kitanda, the vice chairman board of directors of Wazalendo Sacco said that it has become increasingly important to bring in more civilian members than the army to help the scheme grow stronger.

He made the remarks during the launching of the new Wazalendo Sacco branch offices in Gulu City on Friday afternoon.

“Initially, we had the intentions of keeping this Sacco to ourselves as the army but over time we have seen that for us to grow, we need more numbers and we quickly saw that bringing in our civilian counterparts into the venture is the best option,” Lt Col Kitanda said.

“By tapping into the civilian population, we just don’t realize the more numbers we so much desire now, but we directly impact the lives of the same population who are Ugandans, not soldiers alone. That is why in our plans, it becomes part of our strategy to incorporate the civilians into our business so that they can join us and we move forward,” he added.

Currently, Wazalendo Sacco has more than 90,000 members, however, the Sacco leadership is looking to expand the numbers by more than 30 per cent by the close of the current financial year.

In an interview, Col. Joseph Freddy Onata, the Chief Executive Officer of Wazalendo Sacco told the Monitor that their vision is to continue growing stronger and build more membership through the creation of more branches among the civilian population.

He said that seven branches have recently been created across the country. While three are situated inside the barracks, four are created in the public places.

“We have the Kampala, Entebbe, the Moroto and now Gulu branches newly put up. The other three are inside the barracks, one at Bombo, Mubende, and Jinja Military barracks,” Col. Onata said.

On bringing the civilians on board, Col. Onata said that a critical screening protocol has been designed by the army to control who among the civilians can come in.

“It is not a problem whether the civilians come in big numbers, we shall set conditions and screen them well, the new branches we are building are our efforts to be proactive not to wait for the civilians to come and look for us in the barracks but can conveniently find us out here,” he said.

Brig. Nicholas Simon Ocan, the outgoing Chairman Supervisory Committee (SUPCO) of the Wazalendo Sacco however challenged the Sacco management to ensure clear accountability to the members timely and invest in financial management training.

Two days ago, Brig. Ocan handed over the office to Col Justus Rukondo following his deployment to Burundi as Uganda’s Defense Advisor.

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