Metropolitan National Sacco Limited has commenced a restructuring process that will allow the 100,000 member outfit to streamline its services and enhance service delivery to its members.
The 43 year old Sacco has entered into a strategic partnership with Cooperative Bank in the process which chairman Christopher Karanja says will allow Metropolitan to build strong capacity for long term sustainability.
“As a bank we felt that the timing of this corporate restructuring deal is timely. We as the Cooperative Bank are here to ensure that your operations are efficient. The service that you are offering to your members are adequate. So the bank is going to give you the necessary capital that you require to serve your members”, Mr Vincent Maragu, head of cooperatives at the Cooperative Bank told the Sacco’s management.
In may this year, the Chief Executive Officer, Benson Mwangi said the 2019 results show the transformation strategy is working after setbacks.
The setbacks were as a result of the Sacco suffering some setbacks prior in 2017/2018 where the money loaned out surpassed savings, with huge non-perfoming loans and members fleeing the Sacco.
Metropolitan has managed to stabilise its operations through recovery of outstanding loans while availing the recovered loans for on lending to members.
Revival plans
The revival plan based on five pillars – liquidity management, deposit mobilisation, loan book management, operational efficiency and build-up of institutional capital that were agreed upon in 2019 has seen the Sacco roll back losses.
The Sacco’s CEO Mr Mwangi, who came in in August 2019 has been key in streamlining and implementing key business strategies to revitalise and steer the sacco in the face of its then declining fortunes.
“Following the approval of the transformation strategy at the 2019 Annual General Meeting, we have recruited an additional 167 new members and received 2070 membership reinstatements from the previous period. In that period, we have also seen a rise in the number of members wishing to reverse their earlier requests to withdraw their membership,” Mr Mwangi said.
Mr Vincent Maragu said that the corporate restructuring deal will ensure the Sacco has adequate working capital to support the members as well as improve the operational efficiency of the Sacco.
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