Sasra vows to rein in rogue saccos to protect Kenyans
The Sacco Societies Regulatory Authority (Sasra) has vowed to rein in on rogue savings and credit co-operative (sacco) societies to protect Kenyans from losing their deposits.
Sasra chairman John Munuve on Thursday said the government had given the sacco regulator the green light to lower its capital threshold for registration to ensure more saccos are on its radar for effective regulation.
He said crooks had taken advantage of the fact that Sasra was only concerned with regulating big Saccos with a capital base of Sh500 million and above to start pyramid schemes in the name of saccos and fleece gullible Kenyans.
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He, however, said the government had given allowed the organisation to lower the bar to register and regulate saccos with capital bases of as low as Sh100 million.
This, he said, would help the organisation to cast its net wider as it carries out its regulatory mandate and make it possible to protect Kenyans from fraudsters disguising themselves as saccos.
Munuve cited the recent Ekeza Sacco scandal in which Kenyans are believed to have lost about Sh2 billion.
He said Sasra had not been aware of the sacco because it had not been registered by any government regulatory organ, and cautioned Kenyans against involving themselves with unregistered saccos.
“We have SACCOs that are doing extremely well in this country. However, we have noticed lately that a few rogue religious people have come up with SACCOs operating behind the pulpit to fleece Kenyans of their hard-earned cash,” he said.
“Whether you have Sh100 million or not, if you are calling yourself a Sacco and you are taking deposits from Kenyans, you will have to let us know how you are operating and how transparent your transactions are,” he added.
Munuve was addressing the press on the sidelines of the 12th retreat of the boards of directors of Kenya’s financial sector regulators on Thursday.
The boards included Sasra, the Insurance Regulatory Authority (IRA), the Capital Markets Authority, Central Bank of Kenya, the Retirement Benefits Authority and the Financial Assets Authority. -KNA
