The success of Kinole Saccos

Written by Mikidadi Waziri, Cooperative advisor Tanzania

Kinole SACCOS in Tanzania was established in 2001, with the support of Sokoine University of Agriculture. Since its establishment, Kinole SACCOS has been known as the financial institution you can trust. This year (2024), Kinole SACCOS is celebrating its 23rd anniversary.

Kinole SACCOS group photo after the assessment

Partnership with Agriterra

1. Financial books had not been audited for 2 years and the assessment team could only use a draft report.
2. The education level of the manager was below the minimum requirements and there was no accountant, only one credit officer.

Recommendations were provided to address these issues and they were successfully implemented. In 2019, a new assessment conducted by Johan Slot yielded positive results. This marked the beginning of a successful journey.

Improvement and growth 

Agriterra supported Kinole SACCOS by offering training courses like governance, female leadership, basic financial management, record keeping at farm level as well as a youth kick off workshop. Also, exchange visits and hands-on advice from our experienced advisors contributed to the cooperative’s progress.  

Staff from Wino SACCOS was invited to train and coach Kinole SACCOS on recording accounts. This collaboration went well and advisors supported in solving the long-stay audit anomalies. After working hard during the financial year 2020, Kinole SACCOS managed to obtain a clean unqualified opinion in 2022. 

Exchange visits

Kinole SACCOS participated in two exchange visits to Wino and Mahanje SACCOS. The clients provided valuable insights and one action point was to change the logo to better reflect the members' activities, particularly related to crops. 

Performing well on financial reports also led to an increase of working capital, savings, deposits and members’ shares. In 2021, a training of SACCOS financial analysis was conducted with the help of a cooperative advisor from Agriterra Kenya and Johan Slot as an Agripool expert.

*All figures in TZS currency

Trend of members’ investment with the SACCOS

The number of members has increased, due to the training conducted in 2022 and 2023. Most of these new members are youth. In 2023 there were 185 new members. So, total membership in December 2023 was 2.959 (male 2187 and female 772).

Kinole SACCOS changed the layout of the office, inspired by insights gained from exchange visits to Wino and other SACCOS in Dar es Salaam.

A significant success was establishing a link with service providers. Kinole SACCOS is responsible for providing loans to its members. The no guaranteed insurance is a challenge. For many years Kinole was not sure about the loan insurance services provided by the main bank in Tanzania. There was no contract between these two organisations and the rate was not certain agreed.
Agriterra advices SACCOS to look for another solution in which they can benefit SACCOS and its members. This was an action point made during the Credit management training conducted in 2023 with Amas Chacha, principal cooperative officer with TCDC. Another action points of this training was to reduce the interest rates as of 2023, for a period of 3 years.

Agriterra also established a link with the National Insurance Corporation (NIC), a state owned insurance company. Kinole SACCOS entered a contract as an agent, earning 2.5% commission on all transactions made with NIC.