By Micheal Atwakiire
Sheema : Members of Kigarama Peoples SACCO in Sheema district, on Monday staged a demonstration at their head offices in Kanyeganyegye trading centre Masheruka town, protesting against their board leaders, who they alleged are dictators and fraudsters .
The angry demonstrators mainly accused the SACCO Board chairman Grace Godfrey Rukumbagaza, the director Sheema Girls SS, whom they said is in office illegally since his term expired earlier, and that he connives with the SACCO general manager Juliet Kyasimire to manage the SACCO as if it’s their home.
Robert Mugabe, a former chairman for loans in the SACCO told us that “This man Rukumbagaza is a super special fraudster, because he uses almost ten different names to steal from our SACCO. He uses Grace Rukumbagaza, Nuwagaba Grace, Grace Rukumbagaza Nuwagaba and others; all those names are used by one person to acquire loans from our SACCO plus signing SACCO documents.
Secondly, his term of office expired in April this year but he has adamantly and forcefully refused to leave office. Wee have spent two years without having a SACCO general meeting. What kind of leader do we have?”
He added that “Many people have started running away from our SACCO by withdrawing all their Savings . What worries us most is that our CEO Kyasimire helped her relative to acquire a Shs100M loan from our SACCO but some of the referees they used are insane. Secondly the property they used as security was taken by another bank after the same person failed to the loan they had acquire from that bank.
Now that money is at risk because the current chairman for loans didn’t approve it. There is another Shs32M which was taken through Rukumbagaza, no one knows what that money was going to do because the chairman for loans didn’t approve it . For sure Rukumbagaza has killed our SACCO!”
Mugabe noted that ” What pissed off most of us was that we appealed to the office of registrar for cooperatives Kampala although it is alleged that they were compromised because of their inaction about the matter.
They had told us to come today and start electing the vetting committee but unfortunately yesterday on Sunday evening , Rukumbagaza put announcements on radios that there is no meeting until court approves when it will take place.
Rukumbagaza has since gone to court and filed a case against the cooperative registrar, alleging that the said meeting was scheduled illegally .”
Most of the members led by Osbert Amanya urged the top government officials to expel Sheema district commercial officer Allan Buhanda from his office.
“If Rukumbagaza did not have support from Sheema district commercial officer Buhanda, we would have finished him long time ago. But this man Buganda has become another big problem to us. I request the authorities to expel him from that office because he has failed his job completely, apart from conniving with Rukumbagaza to do their volongoto.” Amanya said.
We tried reaching Rukumbagaza on phone for a comment but he instead told us to go the district commercial officer for a comment, not to him .
