Priest and father of cooperative movement

Fr Joakim Gitonga at his office in Murang'a Town, on May 27,2019. Gitonga started the first registered Sacco in Kenya,1964, Mariira Parish Co-operative Savings and Credit Society. He was given dispensation from priestly obligations and allowed to marry by Pope John Paul 11, in 1975. [Kibata Kihu/Standard]

?When you search the name Joachim Getonga on Google, the search engine will give you 102 results. When you put the title Fr before the name, Google will give you 7,640 results. 

A priest (now retired), author and chairman of the local Kikuyu Council of Elders, Fr Getonga is a household name in Murang'a County. He is a man of many firsts, a celebrated Kenyan whose biggest achievement is not captured by internet search engines.

You can easily tell he is a man after his culture. Inside a small room in his office in Murang'a town, Getonga sits on a wooden chair as he turns over pages of his manuscripts.

The walls are packed with books and newspapers -- old and new. Plaques of historical heroes hang on the wall and close to his desk, Getonga has placed an image of a colonial paramount chief Karuri wa Gakure who originated from Murang’a.

Getonga, now 84, pulls out a book titled 'European Paganism in Africa', and in a humorous stunt to start a conversation he says, “We were not pagans, the white people were.”

The retired catholic priest has written seven books, four still unpublished. Through his books, Getonga reaches out to anyone willing to learn about erosion of African culture after introduction of the western way of life into Africa.

Born in 1935 in Tuthu village in Kigumo, Murang’a County, Father Getonga will go in history books as a man of many firsts. He is the brainchild behind Murang’a College of Technology, an institution he served as principal.

Shortly after retiring from priesthood in 1975, he joined a team of elites from Murang’a to build a college. He became principal and organised a series of fund drives.

The college started operations in 1974 but opened its doors to its first batch of students in November 1975.

“We established mechanical and woodwork departments and 30 students enrolled in the same year with no financial support from the government,” he says.

Lack of funding led to formation of Technology Colleges Principals’ Association with his colleagues from Kiambu, Nyeri (Kimathi) and Eldoret colleges of technology to lobby for government support.

They used the platform to get donors -- some from Canada and Netherlands introduced new courses in the colleges and helped employ teachers.

“They donated equipment for the courses they introduced and more students started enrolling for electrical, mechanical, woodwork among other technical courses,” he recalls.

Contended with the immense growth, Getonga retired in 1993 after serving in the college for 18 years. The school has since developed to Murang’a University of Technology.

But of his many achievements, this retired catholic priest is least known -- and less celebrated -- as among founders of the cooperative movement in Kenya in 1970.

As a young man, he was pained to see his countrymen grapple with abject poverty and oppression by the white people. Throughout his priesthood, he worked hard to help small traders.

When Africans were first allowed to join the cooperative movement in Kenya in 1959, Fr Getonga was among the Catholic theology students who underwent training on significance of saving in cooperatives.

“A Kenyan Catholic bishop invited a priest from Germany to educate us on the movement and how to help our people form cooperative societies,” he says.

That priest, Fr Paul Clay, urged them to help members of their congregations improve their living standards while seeking spiritual nourishment. 

“He told us if you see someone drowning, don’t insist on them to get saved by reading the scriptures, help them because they don’t need scriptures at the moment,” Getonga recalls with nostalgia.

After his ordination in 1960, Fr Getonga was posted to Mariira parish in Kigumo. Intent to transform lives of his kinsmen and armed with the knowledge he gained from Fr Clay, he mobilised small traders from Murang’a and taught them about the cooperative movement.

“It pained me because only the rich could access bank loans due to high interest rates. I wanted to help the small-scale traders. In every station I was posted to, my first obligation was to teach them about cooperatives,” he says.

Mariira was a typical village where colonialists had confined villagers to bar them from providing Mau Mau fighters with food and water.

“The villagers were poor and their farms did not have as much produce. They were confined and could not walk out. I used to talk to them during church services and they liked the idea of starting a Sacco,” he says.

While in Murang’a, 10 people embraced the idea and Getonga took the bold move and approached then Attorney General to register a cooperative society. He was dismissed.

“The AG was a white man and I boldly told him I wanted to register a cooperative ‘for the poor people’ but he dismissed me. He told me the poor people of Murang’a could not afford to run a society and I had to get a lawyer to help me,” said the former priest.

But he could not afford Sh1,500 needed to pay the lawyer and he shelved the idea until 1965 when he approached the first African cooperative officer who helped him register Mariira Cooperative Society.

A month after its registration, the sacco was launched by then Minister for Industry Gikonyo Kiano in Murang'a.

“That was a big achievement and so many people came to witness the launch of the first people’s bank. I was the first chairman and manager of the sacco among a committee of 10 people,” he said.

He was then sponsored to study in Rome and England. On his return to Kenya in 1966, he was transferred from Murang’a to the Nyeri Catholic Cathedral where he registered yet another cooperative called Nyeri Cathedral Parish Cooperative, now known as Cathedral Holdings. This cooperative built its first establishment with Sh32,000.

“It was easy to bring everyone on board and I mobilised all teachers. Every payday, I would ensure they deposited part of their salary to the cooperative,” he says.

The sacco he established in Murang'a also grew in numbers and savings, and its members ventured into real estate, building their first establishment in Murang’a town and naming it Mukuruwe wa Nyagathanga Sacco. 

Other cooperatives mushroomed among farmers in Murang'a, Nyeri, Nakuru and Kirinyaga and Getonga was happy that the movement was gaining momentum in Mount Kenya.

In Kanyenyaini, tea farmers started Muramati Cooperative and Building Society that later grew to Unaitas Sacco and Equity Bank respectively.

Saccos later mushroomed in other areas such as Kirinyaga with Getonga lauding efforts of the Catholic Church to support him in establishment of the credit societies.

“Today, I am a happy man because the movement gained momentum and actually took hold in sectors like agriculture,” he says.

Kenya credit union movement is rated among the best in Africa with more than 22,000 registered saccos.  

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