Why Over 1.8M Kenyans Have Stopped Saving In Saccos

Over 1.8 million Kenyans have stopped contributing saving to Saccos according to new data from Sacco Societies Regulatory Authority (Sasra).

Data from the regulator shows 19.7% of the 5.99 million saccos members did not transact on their accounts for more than six months last year.

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“During the year ended December 2021, there was a marginal increase of 3.03 percent of the membership in saccos from 5.82 million members reported in 2020 to 5.99 million members in 2021,” Sasra chief executive Peter Njuguna wrote in the annual supervision report.

“A large proportion of the members numbering 1.18 million were, however, reported as dormant, implying that they had not conducted any transactions with their respective saccos for more than six months.”

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The contributions have gone down mostly because of the pandemic which led to terminations in the workplace. This came in a year when official data reported 926,100 jobs were added in the formal and informal sectors last year.

The growth in jobs came on the back of the easing of Covid-19 restrictions, which had led to 736,000 job losses in 2020, suggesting a net hiring gain of 190,000 positions.

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This saw Sacco members who are no longer active account for a quarter or 25.09 percent of the 5.4 million total membership compared to 16.95 percent reported in 2019.