Minister of Trade and Industry, Sosten Gwengwe, M.P., has challenged Savings and Credit Cooperatives (SACCO) in the country to never stop dreaming big.

Gwengwe made the remarks yesterday when he visited and interacted with members and leadership of Malawi Police SACCO at Police Headquarters in Area 30, Lilongwe as well as United Civil Service SACCO in Mzuzu.

Gwengwe highlighted that SACCOs were a key to changing lives and contributing to wealth creation as underlined in the Malawi 2063.

The Minister cited examples of Kenya and the United States of America where financial cooperatives have grown to become High Street banks and that he had no doubt that if the two cooperatives stuck to their vision and went flat out to increase membership they would in the near future become a cooperative bank that would ably compete with High Street Banks like Standard, FCB, National Bank and other commercial banks in the country.

Police SACCO which had initially started with 65 members is now at 14,900 membership while UCS SACCO has just registered a 12 billion profit.

Giving testimony to the development, Police Commissioner Violet Magwaya who is Director for Human Resource and a paid up member herself discloses that through the MPSACCO loan she had been able to procure a decent vehicle for herself and had bought a piece of land where she intends to build a re tirement home for herself.

Chief Executive Officer of UCS SACCO, Francis Waliwa disclosed that his establishment intends to build a magnificent headquarters in the Capital City of Lilongwe and asked the Minister to assist with land acquisition processes.

MPSACCO had challenged the Minister that with the projected growth in membership, product diversification, they were sure to walk shoulder to shoulder with the Reserve Bank in the near future in terms of financial cooperative development.

UCS SACCO has been recognised as the fastest growing SACCO not only in the SADC region but the whole African Continent.

Earlier on, Gwengwe had emphasised that his Ministry through the Department of SMEs and Cooperatives, would continue hand holding these SACCOs until they become self reliant and ready to compete with High End Commercial Banks.

The Minister further said the objective of SACCOs is to ensure households in the country are self sufficient which in turn can reduce burden on government, and that instead government would use this money for other crucial development programmes.

He further pointed out the approval of the Cooperative Development Policy in 2024 as a major win towards the growth of cooperatives from primary to secondary and reach tertiary.

Gwengwe applauded SACCOs for being agents of financial inclusion and wealth creation starting from household level to a cooperate level.