Background
The Salary Earners Scheme in the Army was implemented in the last Quarter of the Calendar Year 2005. It was part of Welfare Scheme which was implemented together with Wazalendo SACCO. The intention of the Army Leadership was to organize easy and affordable credit to UPDF Personnel through Commercial Banks as a short term strategy in order to let Wazalendo SACCO grow and take over that function.
Qualification for the Salary Earners Scheme program requires a recommendation from the mother unit and accurate particulars from applicants. Applicants must have served in the UPDF for three years (officers) and four years (militants). Officers/Men being reinstated must have served for six months before applying. Additionally, applicants should not be servicing other loans.
Memorandum of understanding
All the Memorandum were to run for two years. However, the banks have continued to offer SES loans to UPDF personnel up to Nov 11 when it was suspended because of high interest rates on loans. It should be noted that there are other banks which did not sign agreement with MoD/UPDF but the Army Leadership left the personnel free to access loans from those banks. THE MoD/UPDF signed a Memorandum of understanding with some Commercial Banks on the following dates:-
10 Oct 2005
Stanbic Bank 10 Oct 2005
09 Dec 2005
Centenary Bank
20 Nov 2005
Post Bank
2009
Barclays Bank
Achievements and Challenges
Since its inception in 2005, many officers and men of UPDF have benefited from the scheme. They were able to address emergency issues such as paying for school fees for themselves or their children, covering medical bills incurred during admission to private hospitals, and acquiring assets like houses. However, a challenge they have faced is the high interest rates imposed by commercial banks.
Historical roles of the SO I/C SES Loans
In the early days of the Scheme the Officer worked under the UPDF GHs loans committee which was chaired by the Director of loans and welfare. The function of this Committee was to vet all loan applications and forward good ones only to JCOS and COS-LF for clearance to banks. However this Committee withdrew from its function unceremoniously and left the whole responsibility to SO I/C SES.
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