The Sacco Societies Regulatory Authority (SASRA) Chief Executive Officer John Mwaka has left the organization, setting up a successor stage.
This influential position in the financial industry has been taken by Peter Njuguna, who has been a manager in charge of the entire SACCO sub-sector’s supervision.
SASRA previous CEOs
It is still unknown who will be confirmed as the next CEO at SASRA. Uncharacteristically, Mwaka was quite open on the rot within the SACCO business at the recent SACCO leaders convention in Mombasa.
Mwaka’s predecessor Carilus Ademba was shown the door after the then Cabinet Secretary for Industry, Trade, and Co-operatives Adan Mohammed declined to renew his contract.
This is even after the board reportedly recommended for a renewal of his tenure contract at the Authority. Ademba had only served one term at SASRA before his tenure came to an end.
The SASRA board immediately embarked on the process of recruiting the next chief executive at the Authority.
John Mwaka, who was then the manager in charge of policy, research and development at the Authority, was appointed in acting capacity to replace Ademba, whose term came to an end in April 2015.
This is after serving the Authority for one term, having first been appointed by Joseph Nyagah, the then Minister for Co-operative Development and Marketing in the Kibaki administration.
Mwaka has over 20 years of institutional development experience and is an expert in co-operative development, planning & change management.
He has been involved in institutional development, strategy formulation, planning and analysis of both planned and existing organizations.
Mwaka is an accomplished professional in institutional design and rural finance development. He has advised and trained co-operatives to create profitable and sustainable financial institutions on a Pro-Bono basis.
Mwaka has previously worked for the Ministry of Cooperative Development and Caltex Oil (K) Limited.
SASRA is a Semi-Autonomous Government Agency under the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and the state department for co-operatives.
The Authority was established under the SACCO Act 2008 and inaugurated in 2009 to license all DT Saccos. This mandate has since been expanded to include supervision on non-deposit-taking SACCOs.
SASRA has been ensuring that Sacco members’ interests are protected, making sure there is confidence in a sector that has been hit by poor governance and theft of funds belonging to the public.
Interestingly, Peter Njuguna-until now, Chief Manager-Sacco Supervision at SASRA, was expected to take over from Ademba given the profile and immense power enjoyed by his docket.
Njuguna has an MSc. in Operations Research from the London School of Economics, UK, and a BSc in Mathematics.
Peter has ten years of experience from the financial sector to bring to SASRA, having worked with the CBK, NBC Kenya, CIC Insurance, and World Council of Credit Unions.
Njuguna has been driving the process of licensing deposit-taking SACCOs, monitoring and evaluating their performance, and conducting a review and improvement of policy, regulatory and supervisory frameworks.
His department has also been doing on-site and off-site surveillance and enforcement of compliance with the regulatory requirements, investigating and enforcing cases of violation against regulatory requirements in line with the SACCO Societies Act 2008 and regulations and analysis of data and information.
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