More than 100,000 Metropolitan Sacco members have lost Sh. 15 billion between 2021 and 2023.
According to the Sacco’s interim chair, this has been caused by the former management that reportedly failed to account for the expenditure and the whereabouts of the members’ savings.
The Saccos interim board has now called on the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) to fasten the investigations into the misappropriation of funds raised by the Metropolitan Sacco members.
“If the loan book was reported to be Sh. 17 billion and now we have Sh. 1 billion, it means the money that we are operating with today, the money with which we are giving services today is current money,” the board told Sacco members on August 15, 2024.
“We are not refusing the responsibility that the Sacco owes members this huge figure. But we have to make the right decision for posterity.”
The Metropolitan Sacco has been sailing in troubled waters after a probe that was ordered by the Commissioner of Co-operatives via the gazette Notice No 4558 in April 2022 unearthed damning findings. This probe found massive irregularities such as fictious dividend payments, irregular lending, and cooking of financial books.
In one instance, it was claimed that the interest income reported in the last 24 years, between 1987-2021 totaled Sh. 16.2 billion. However, the cumulative income for the same period was estimated at Sh. 6.8 billion, resulting in a variance of Sh. 9.4 billion.
The fake dividends were paid out of the Metropolitan Sacco members savings. In one of the suspicious transactions that were busted, there was an overstatement of the Sacco’s premier loan facility by an excess of Sh. 7 billion due to suspected disbursements to fictitious members.
At the same time, the management of the Sacco was unable to explain why the Sacco’s cumulative assets were stated as Sh. 28 billion yet external auditors had established that they were around Sh. 14 billion.
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The management had gone on to hoodwink members with false dividend payments despite non-existent surplus reserves from which such disbursements were made.
The management of the Sacco was also accused of having disbursed loans amounting to Sh. 490 million to its employees. In addition, Sh. 176.9 belonging to the Sacco’s branches in Kisumu, Kiambu and Thika branches was allegedly lost!