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The government and savings and credit cooperative societies (Saccos) stakeholders have decried increased cybercrimes and poor governance describing them as key threats derailing the growth of the co-operative’s finances.

Commissioner for Co-operatives David Obonyo (pictured) said while Saccos have registered tremendous growth on high adoption of the latest technology, increasing criminal activities targeting users through computers and phones have hit the sector.

Last month, the government reported a major cyber-attack that caused an outage of more than 5,000 public services in the country for more than 48 hours while disabling internet-based and mobile payment platforms.

“This challenge is more prominent in Saccos that are financially struggling and with leadership wangles,” Obonyo said yesterday. Obonyo was speaking at Voi Wildlife Lodge Tsavo National Park during a four-day stakeholders conference on unpacking key roles of supervisory and audit committee and board management for cooperative sustainability.

“A good number of Saccos operate on old technology platforms but of late the same has become vulnerable to emerging threats. This puts members’ resources at great risk,” he added.

Obonyo stated that cybercrime and corruption-related risks even though a global challenge can be tamed by enhancing sound governance. Co-operative Alliance of Kenya (CAK) vice chairman David Mategwa said cybercrime is a big threat to the growth of Sacco business in the country.

“A good number of Sacco operations structures have been hacked leading to loss of information and members resources. This has been aggravated by lack of robust technology platforms such as firewalls as some of the Saccos are still relying on old fashioned knowledge models,” said Mategwa who is also Kenya National Police Saccos Chairman.  The increased cybercrimes, he added, have been aggravated by lack of knowledge by directors and senior management. And, thus in cases of an attack in terms of the operations, the employees are not able to respond quickly.