RUAHA CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY

Savings and Credits Cooperative Societies (SACCOS) are very important for delivering various services to a large number of people who cannot afford to obtain credit services from formal financial institutions in Tanzania. The critical problem which faces most of SACCOS in Tanzania is poor loan repayment for borrowers. Therefore, this study sought to assess how the integrity factors (loans appraisal procedures, the integrity of credit officers and credit committee members and collateral assessment) affect the loan's repayment among SACCOS’ borrowers in Mbeya City (MC). The study used descriptive research design and the stratified sampling to obtain 7 SACCOS from 76 SACCOS. The sampling formula was used to get 179 respondents from 324 borrowers with outstanding loans while the random and stratified sampling were used to select respondents for the survey. However, only 118 questionnaires were returned. The collected data were coded and analyzed descriptively by using SPSS version 21. The study established that low integrity of credit officers/credit committee members, poor loan appraisal and poor valuing of collateral were the reasons for poor loans repayment among SACCOS’ borrowers in MC. The study recommends that the loan appraisal committee and borrowers should be trained on issues related to integrity, collateral valuation and effective loan appraisal procedures. Also, SACCOS' rules and regulations should be enforced to promote loans repayment.

The integrity factors, loans repayment, SACCOS, Tanzania