Ibanda: Crackdown on Emyooga loan defaulters starts
The Ibanda district Emyooga taskforce has started a nine-day operation to recover outstanding bad loans from defaulters in Ibanda Municipality.
The operation has since captured at least six loan defaulters, including two from the Ibanda Municipality Journalists SACCOs.
The journalists SACCOs had 24 defaulters with a total of over UGX 18m in outstanding bad loans, of which only UGX 1.2m was recovered during the operation.
Grace Ngonzi, the municipality loan recovery taskforce leader, said a total of nearly UGX 5m was paid by the defaulters during first day of the operation on February 9.
She however noted many have ‘gone underground’ after being tipped off by friends.
Ngonzi advised the defaulters to, instead, come out and pay the money to avoid prosecution.
Seif Katabazi, the Ibanda deputy RDC, who is spearheading the ongoing operation, said about five chairpersons of Emyooga SACCOS are also in hiding over their respective cooperatives’ funds.
Officials have said that several other Emyooga SACCO loan defaulters in the district have gone into hiding to evade arrest by the taskforce set up to recover the money.
The deputy RDC said they will involve the Police to track them down to answer before the courts of law.
The ongoing operation is being supported by the RDC’s office and Police.
