A large number of public primary school teachers in the two districts of Mukono and Kayunga have fallen victim to a systematized syndicate conducting fraudulent schemes within Access Financial Services Limited.
The scheme targeted primary school teachers with salary arrears in remote areas. It was brought to light recently after one teacher in the Kayunga district noticed an email on her telephone notifying her that she had signed up for a loan with Access Financial Services.
On the contrary, the teacher had been taken through a different process aimed at accessing her salary arrears by Jackson Baraka who claimed to be working at the Ministry of Education and Sports but later it was discovered that he was a senior loans officer at Access Financial Services.
Baraka and his team were assisted by Betty Nankumbi, the deputy head teacher from Nakifuma Church of Uganda Primary School to identify teachers with arrears and also contact them as an official from the Ministry of Public Service.
The identification process was made easy with support from officials from the two districts of Mukono and Kayunga.
Information obtained from police indicates the fraudsters convinced teachers to surrender their personal data which included bank accounts, copies of appointment and confirmation letters.
They asked them to register new lines and surrender them to Baraka under the guise of verification. These were used to receive and confirm messages at a later stage while enrolling the teachers on the system for fake loans.
At the beginning of this month, police managed to arrest the master brains behind the scheme, lines and other documents from teachers recovered.
This website has established that Access Financial Services started operations in Uganda in 2003 to extend microcredit to Ugandans in the public sector to improve their livelihoods, however, in Kayunga and Mukono the financial company changed the goals.
The institution is a member of the Africa Alliance Investment Bank group under the Silo, Select Africa Finance Limited.
“This financial company has a paperless loan origination platform, delivered by its team of field agents, but now in our districts they targeted teachers with loan arrears but without smartphones. Upon securing your details they do the rest of the loan registration process and only come to you to sign on their tabs. They will tell you to sign for a quick processing of your arrears, who would miss out on that chance.” One of the duped teachers at Kayunga says.
This website has further established that Access Financial Services intentionally sent money beyond the teachers’ arrears on their bank accounts but immediately it hits the account, teachers receive a telephone call instructing them to withdraw and remit the extra balance to their agents.
A teacher who has preferred anonymity reveals receiving 4.5 million and returned 3.8 million after the deduction of her arrears. Her happiness was short lived, for the last three months, her salary has been deducted and upon making inquiries from the bank, she was told that deductions are made to service a loan of 4. 5 million secured from Access Financial Services.
Such a situation has happened to several other teachers but chose to suffer in silence. Their savior was a teacher, the financial agents failed to understand that she had a smartphone.
In the process of registering her on the system, she received an email indicating that she had signed for a loan at Access Financial Services, in consultation with the district personnel, she realized that he had also learned about the same matter and had already raised a red flag.
Baraka, the Access Financial Services loans officer together with Nankumbi were arrested upon approaching the teacher to sign on their tab to confirm the loan.
The suspects were aligned before the Kayunga Chief Magistrates Court and remanded to Ntenjeru Prison however, under unclear circumstances Baraka died in prison.
Nonetheless, the financial scam to the innocent teachers has caused emotional and financial distress to their lives, monthly partial losses of their salaries and eventually family disputes.
Access Financial Services Management has not come out to publicly respond to the heist, neither have they responded to our key questions put up to them.
In our next episodes, we shall look into the real circumstances surrounding his death and the company’s disturbing loan appraisal process.
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