At Cathedral

This morning we walked over to a meeting at Cathedral.  Cathedral is one of the larger churches here in Iringa.  Despite its name it is a Lutheran church.  The church was built by the Swedish during the early days of the British tenure, right after WWI.  It is located right in town at the edge of the main business district.

The SACCOS at Cathedral is named Amani – “Peace” in Swahili – and was started several years ago by a local businessman as a money making operation.  When we visited it in 2008 it had over 160 members, was charging 3%/month interest rates and was making money.  About three years ago the businessman went a little bonkers and quit talking to the other officers and members.  Then the treasurer died and the vice chairman moved away.  This left only the Secretary to try to collect loans and run the SACCOS.  Last year we were asked if we would help get another SACCOS at Cathedral for the members.  We first went over and investigated the problems.  After we found out what had happened we got the MFI director, Prof Enock Ugulumu, to help them out.

At first Enock tried to get another SACCOS started.  Unfortunately the original SACCOS had claimed the church and its area for the SACCOS so, since you cannot register two SACCOS for the same area, this was rejected.  Then he tried to get the members to “recall” the leaders and elect new ones.  Unfortunately the coop officer rejected this since there were no auditable records to pass on.  Finally we got the Iringa coop office to do a full audit of all funds.  This has taken a year to complete – at least in part due to the fact that no one seemed to have any files to audit!  (It turned out the Treasurer took them with him when he left town.)

We had been told that the final audit report was now at Cathedral so we all went over to review it and make plans.  The audit report was completed, but we could not have it because the village officials had to sign off first!  As a result; Enock, Itiweni, Sandy, Peter, and I wound up talking with the Pastor about what we have found so far in our visits.  Actually it turned into a very interesting visit for the Pastor, Enock, Itiweni, and Peter as we summarized what we have found. 

Following our discussion with the Pastor we decided to meet with the membership and review the coop officers’ report on Wednesday evening.  The Pastor will announce this on Sunday.  This will give everyone plenty of time to make plans to attend the meeting.

After we adjourned we went to lunch with Itiweni and her daughter Mercy.  Itiweni is starting to feel much better and hopes to do visits with us next week.  

We walked over to the "downtown" area of Iringa.

Past the main marketplace.

Cathedral was built by the Swedes after WWI.

The SACCOS officers were not there so we met with Pastor Bryceson Mbogo.  He has been helping Enock.

Itiweni made the meeting.  She is feeling much better and hopes to start going with us next week.

After the meeting we took Itiweni and her daughter Mercy to lunch.