The Government has started the processes of hiring a firm to automate the operations of Umurenge Savings and Credit Cooperatives (SACCO). In 2015, the government hired Kenyan-based firm, FinTech, to develop an IT based system for Umurenge-SACCOs at the cost of $4.6 million. The project failed to take off. The Director General of Rwanda Cooperative Agency, Prof. Jean-Bosco Harelimana, on Tuesday told The New Times that: “19 firms have expressed their interest, we have selected eight of them to make technical and financial offers but only four have done so”. They will start automating SACCOs by May this year and the exercise of bringing together and digitalizing all 416 SACCOs countrywide will take a year. “That will enable SACCOs to use technological materials that we offered them but can’t be used without software to connect them,” he emphasized. Rachel Uwera, one of Umurenge-SACCO users, said that the automation will facilitate the deposit and withdrawal of money wherever a client is, a very important aspect that SACCOs lack nowadays. “One of the major issues that SACCOs have is their limited services and operations. You can’t withdraw or deposit money wherever you are as other banks do. It requires you to go that particular SACCO where you opened an account to be served. It is really a challenge and affects our lives,” she said. “Having SACCOs automated will ease our lives and facilitate many things, including our businesses. Where we will be able to be served by any SACCO around the country,” she added. The Manager of Kimisagara SACCO a in Kigali, Mary Lambasha told the reporter that lack of automation of SACCOs is still affecting the country’s development and economic growth them in various ways. “Lack of automation is affecting Rwandans in general especially in service delivery. Serving many clients manually is not easy, filling books and files take much time. You can find a person spending the whole day waiting to be served. It affects their work and we feel frustrated,” she stated. “Lack of automation also causes various losses. Some errors may occur in our daily operations. There were also cases of theft due to lack of a system to control them”. editor@newtimesrwanda.com
