Sacco finally owns up to fraud after PD exposé
The management of Catholic church-managed micro-finance in Ruiru has finally owned up to members over the fraudulent activities and non-performing loans in the Sacco.
Officials of St Francis of Assisi Ruiru Catholic Church Self Help Group popularly known as Ruiru Fund, while reacting to an expose by the People Daily, sent messages to all its members with a view to allaying fears that they risked losing the savings.
The Sacco is domiciled at St Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Ruiru, Kiambu
But while the move was meant to discredit People Daily’s expose, it turned into a crisis for the management, after they acknowledged that fraud orchestrated by part of its leadership, staff and a section of priests who have been siphoning member-savings through unpaid loans had indeed taken place, move that has caused more panic among concerned members.
“We wish to draw your attention to reports appearing in the print and electronic media on May 17 on the status of your fund. The reports are not factual. The board and management have put in place measures to recover long outstanding non-performing loans and legal actions on fraudulent activities that happened in the past as reported during the ADM (Annual Delegates Conference) on April 29.We assure you that Ruiru Fund is strong and your investments are safe,” reads the message which People Daily has seen.
Soon after the message was sent out, some members demanded for an external probe on the operations of the outfit, even as it emerged that some operations of the sacco could be illegal since it is only registered to act as a marketing agency for Caritas Microfinance.
Some former and current officials of the management, staff and even some priests at the facility are facing accusations of running down the 22, 219-member outfit.
The sacco has a share capital of Sh1.2 billion and a loan book of Sh1 billion. In their books, Sh413 million has been classified as “a loss” since borrowers, who include current and former officials as well as staff.
