Wazalendo was formed to serve the savings of serving and retired UPDF personnel and Ministry of Finance staff. It was, from the first day, the largest SACCO in Uganda. It had no lending systems, no accounting controls and no governance structure. Money was moving on the strength of relationships.
I built the lending, accounting and control systems from nothing. I set credit policy, established loan appraisal and approval, installed monthly reporting to the board, and put a supervisory committee in place that reported to the members rather than to the board it was meant to check.
Portfolio at risk was held below 2 percent, in an institution lending to a membership that carried real income volatility. The systems outlived my tenure and became the template for how the SACCO still operates.
None of it was clever. It was sequenced, written down, and reported on monthly.
Designed the lending policy and the loan appraisal process, so approval stopped depending on who was asking.
Installed the accounting controls and the monthly reporting cycle.
Established the board structure and a supervisory committee that reported to members, not to the board it checked.
Put portfolio at risk in front of the board every month, with the trend rather than a single figure.
A financial institution does not fail because its people are dishonest. It fails because nobody designed the system they are working inside.
The scorecard takes fifteen minutes and tells you where the gap sits before you spend anything.