Massive trouble has erupted at Stima Savings and Credit Cooperative (Sacco) that threatens to interfere with the smooth operations in branches spread across the country. Emerging details from an insider revealed that trouble first erupted with its Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) years ago, but nothing has been done to rectify the situation.
The source said that a majority of these machines are faulty and perpetually malfunctioning in the process resulting in long queues by those seeking services. At the same time, Sacco members are reportedly losing hundreds of millions of shillings annually in delays.
A source was quoted as saying “That is because these machines have been tampered with and compromised to interfere with the members’ transactions targeted at their savings“. The worst-hit areas are those based at Stima Sacco headquarters located in the Ngara in Nairobi City, Kimathi Street near Nation Centre. Others are branches in Nakuru, Olkaria, Kisumu, Eldoret and Mombasa’s Kawi branch among others.
All these ATMs are supposed to serve tens of thousands of members who largely depend on their efficiency and FOSA offices for monthly salaries but also process their loan applications. More emerging details indicate that this problem has been plaguing the Sacco since 2019 with no respite and has not been resolved to date, if anything the issue is getting worse every month as the bosses look unbothered. Although members have reported the issue to the management, nothing tangible has been done to rectify the situation. Several members who spoke to The Weekly Vision on behalf of their affected colleagues spread across the country, requested not to be named, only saying that ”this is a plague that is slowly ruining us.”
They continued: “It is a grave matter that we have persistently complained to the Sacco headquarters in Nairobi and virtually all branches across the country, but nothing has been done to completely erase the problem as we continue suffering.’ “The only option we have now is to mobilize ourselves across the country and execute mass withdrawals and departures to save our savings from going under with a sinking boat. They said that they had been told that the ATMs belong to the Cooperative Bank of Kenya; they however demanded to know why the management still deals with the bank when the Sacco has enough money to install its ATMs.
Efforts to trace Stima Sacco CEO Gamaliel Hassan Anyanzwa or their Public Relations Operative Jack Kulova to verify this story proved fruitless. Stima Sacco members are mostly drawn from the ministry of energy and related state corporations like Kenya Power and Lighting Company (KPC), Kenya Electricity Generating Corporation (KenGen), Rural Electricity and Renewable Energy Corporation (REREC), Geothermal Electricity Generation Corporation and many others.
Members also levelled accusations at branch managers of being involved in massive corrupt deals in which the Sacco is losing hundreds of millions of shillings annually across the country.
“These managers have allegedly established mafia-like cartels in which IT smart employee’s hack into member’s accounts, stealing small amounts of money which then translates into hundreds of millions of shillings in a single year while getting away with it.”
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