Afya Sacco to hold ADC at Safari Park Hotel on Saturday

Afya Sacco will hold a National Annual Delegates Conference (ADC) on Saturday at Safari Park Hotel in Nairobi after its 350 delegates demanded they all attend in person.

Initially, Sacco officials had pushed for a virtual conference citing the social distancing challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic but delegates demanded a physical meeting to address some urgent matters.

It has emerged that delegates are pushing for the election of new officials because of the alleged infighting among the top officials in the Sacco.

“We are going to deal with issues that have made the Sacco not perform well especially because the officials do not work as a team to the detriment of the smooth running of the Sacco,” said a member from a branch in the South Rift.

The delegates now say they will be seeking to amend the by-laws among other changes so that they can make the desired reforms in the Sacco.

The Sacco has been experiencing problems since 2007 when delegates removed some officials from office who were later reinstated through a court order.

The court decision created more challenges in the Sacco when in 2020, the Chairman Mr Vitalis Lukiri was cited for contempt of court for allegedly not abiding by the court to reinstate the officials who were removed by the delegates.

Lukiri and the Vice Chairman S.K Kariuki were then removed from office by the Commissioner for Cooperatives Geoffrey Njangombe for allegedly being unfit to hold office.

Although they moved to court seeking a stay order to stop their removal, the High Court dismissed the application saying the matter ought to have been returned to the tribunal.

“Justice was not done because we were being punished for a decision that was made by delegates and furthermore almost all board members had either retired or had passed on. It was only me I and the Vice chairman who were remaining,” said Lukiri.

Arguments that they had already appeared at the tribunal and the only option for a fair hearing and determination for them was in the High Court was dismissed.

Having expended all avenues to seek redress, the two officers vacated office with the baggage of impropriety on their shoulders despite protests that they had served diligently for over two decades in the Sacco.

Lukiri still remembers a call he received from a top official at the Ministry of Cooperatives at the time asking him why he was carrying out re-organisation of staff in the Sacco.

“I told him that re-organisation of staff at the Sacco was part of my job as the chairman and that is when I learned that powerful forces had ganged up against us,” says Lukiri.

The senior officer also asked about the court case and why they had not reinstated the officers removed by the NDC and a few months later they received their letters sending them home.

As the delegates meet on Saturday, the former chairman says they have now retired but their names are still tainted.