Iringa Hope visits 2014: Cathedral

Today we took a short walk through town to Cathedral. It is a pretty walk with the trees in bloom and all the color and activity in the marketplace. We did not meet with a SACCOS today but rather with the parish Pastors who have asked us in years past to help them revive a SACCOS that is having problems.

The Cathedral SACCOS was started by a local businessman. Most of the members came from the Cathedral church which is why they were involved. The businessman made some poor decisions and closed the SACCOS, causing all of the savers to lose their money. We suspect that many of his friends and possibly the local co-op officer benefited from the lost funding – but we can’t find out. The problem is that the records are not available to anyone until the co-op officer finishes his audit. It has been three years and he is still not done. The excuses he has are laughable; however since we had no part in this SACCOS we have no standing to be able to force any action.

Today we are telling the parish leaders that it is time to move on. We suggested this last year but they asked us to keep trying. We have talked to the municipal officials, other co-op officers, etc, but without having a part in the SACCOS there just is not anything that an outside organization, like Iringa Hope, can do. So, forget it and move on.

We talk about their options. It seems to us that the best option for the people here is to have them join our newly formed SACCOS at the diocese, which is called the Diocese of the Iringa Area or DIRA. The DIRA SACCOS is registered and starting to operate. We suggest that since DIRA is a short walk for them they should urge their members to go there. The pastors were surprised that they would be able to do this. When we wrote the constitution for DIRA we made sure that the membership clause would include Cathedral. The leaders were very happy to hear this. They will start telling people this Sunday to go there. We think that this is the best solution for everyone.

On our way home from Cathedral we passed the government co-op office so we stopped in to visit with the local officers. We discussed the difference between an AMCOS (Agricultural Marketing Cooperative Society) and a SACCOS. The two officers couldn't agree on what the functions of each should be. It soon became clear that the difference is not clear even to the officers.

While a SACCOS primarily does savings and loans, it is also allowed to operate businesses. An AMCOS on the other hand cannot take savings nor do loans – it can only do agricultural business. So where does the SACCOS ability to do business stop and the AMCOS start? Right now the laws are being updated in Dodoma so we will have to wait and see.

After we left the coop office we headed for the university and more meetings. While Tom was in meetings, Sandra started English tutoring sessions with Peter, which is right up her alley.