Home | News | TEACHERS TO SHARE E38.5M, BUT NOT HAPPY

TEACHERS TO SHARE E38.5M, BUT NOT HAPPY

08/12/2020 00:07:00 BY STANLEY KHUMALO

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MANZINI – Teachers are seeing red! This best sums up their reaction following the publication of their dividends from their cooperative. The cooperative, which is under their union - Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT) – is known as the Savings and Credit Co-operative Society (SACCO).

Yesterday, it declared that dividends to be shared by its membership shall be eight per cent, which was half a per cent lesser than the 8.5 per cent they received last year.

SACCO is a teachers’ savings scheme, whose membership is made up of teachers, lecturers in colleges and institutions of higher learning in the country and employees of the society and those of SNAT. The society, to date, has an active membership of almost 12 000 people, according to its website.

In the chairperson’s report, shared with the membership, it was stated that in the 2019/2020 budget, the SACCO projected to pay interest on members’ savings and dividends on shares to a tune of E38.5 million reflecting an eight per cent interest on savings.

The chairperson, Nozipho Dlamini, in the report said: “In the year under review towards the end of the first month of the last quarter, the economy was totally shut down and this has resulted in most members facing financial stress as they had to deal with different circumstances brought about by the COVID -19 pandemic.”

She said the situation on the ground necessitated the Board to look at how SACCO could be an answer and in close scrutiny of its (SACCO) operations, they (Board) decided to sanction a payment as per budgeted percentage of eight.

Dlamini notified the cooperative’s membership that due to the ongoing pandemic, it was impossible to have a physical annual general meeting (AGM) this year. She extended an apology for this and advised the membership to communicate through an email with the Board if need be.

This resulted in the membership of the co-operative venting their frustrations on the various social media platforms that teachers use to communicate issues pertaining to their welfare.

The educators expressed disappointment in that they were to share only eight per cent despite that in the previous year; the cooperative sanctioned a payment of dividends at 8.5 per cent.

In a plethora of anger and discontentment shared by members of the cooperative, they raised concerns that the dividends should have been more than eight per cent as there was no AGM.

During the AGM, the teachers claimed that they were each awarded an amount of E150 to cater for their lunch meals. And based on an independent calculation, if all the membership attended the AGM, the cooperative could have spent about E1.8 million for their lunch as it is estimated there are about 12 000 members.

Furthermore, the teachers in their discontentment with the commissioned dividends proposed that there should be a lifestyle audit of the co-operative’s leadership. In a fit of rage, one teacher said: “SNAT SACCO is no longer and will never be an answer to teachers’ financial needs, but a disappointment and a catalyst to death of SNAT members.”

Another teacher suggested that a benchmark should be set when people are campaigning to be voted into the co-operative. The educator recommended that teachers should vote for an individual who would be able to raise money through different strategies so that the members would every year receive better dividends than the previous year.

“The money shared is still far less than when we did not have a structure (to lease out),” the teacher complained.

Another member complained that they were expecting better dividends as they had been paying their subscriptions despite the prevalence of the pandemic, as salaries were not affected.

“What did the other co-operatives that sanctioned the payment of dividends at 12 per cent do differently if we are getting eight per cent,” complained another teacher. Meanwhile, another teacher claimed that the effects of the pandemic were supposed to be minimal as their financial year ended June 30, 2020. The member lamented that this meant that the effects would be felt even in the next financial year. To these complaints shared by the teachers, the Secretary General of SNAT, Sikelela Dlamini, said the members’ grievances were genuine. He said last year’s dividends were 8.5 per cent and teachers saved every month and in their reasoning, what they saved this financial year should have been in excess of what was accrued in the previous financial year.

“The socio-economic challenges faced by teachers are extreme as their money in a number of years has been eroded by inflation without any cost-of-living adjustment (CoLA). When it was awarded, it (CoLA) was not sufficient,” Sikelela said.

However, he expressed faith in that the SACCO executive did due diligence when calculating, more so because they involved the regulator and auditors. He said it was also imperative for their members to substantiate their concerns with empirical evidence as it would substantiate their claims and not be just means to blow off steam.

“We should not want something that will collapse SACCO as it will be hard to resuscitate it,” Sikelela said.

He also expressed hope that any grievances would be addressed by the SACCO Board.

Meanwhile, the teachers’ complaints came against the backdrop of a four per cent increment in the cooperatives’ savings. According to the Credit Committee Report, the members’ savings increased from E445.8 million in 2019 to E463.4 million by June 2020.

This was said to have happened when SACCO had experienced the withdrawal of 229 members, which attracted a payout of a total sum of E7.9 million.

The credit report further states that during the year under review, SACCO disbursed a total of E342 million in requests for loans to members compared to E291 million advanced in the previous year, 2019.