The Impact of SACCO Financing and Government Support on Retail SMEs’ Performance

This paper examines how savings and credit co-operative society (SACCO) financing and Government Support Programmes (GSPs) relate to retail small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) performance in Tharaka South, Kenya, and whether proprietor experience moderated these associations. A quantitative cross-sectional survey targeted 269 proprietors from 922 registered businesses; 266 usable questionnaires were analysed. The separate simple models reported a positive SACCO coefficient (B = 0.571, R² = .522) and a positive but non-significant GSP coefficient (B = 0.216, R² = .056, reported p = .218). These results are directionally consistent with the SACCO hypothesis, whereas the reported GSP model does not support its positive-association hypothesis at the .05 level. Analytic case counts and SACCO model summaries contain inconsistencies, so inferential decisions remain conditional on reconciliation of the original output. Neither moderation hypothesis can be assessed because the interaction coefficients are not separately identified. The contribution is a local examination of co-operative and public-support financing scores within their respective analytic samples, rather than a controlled comparison of provider effectiveness. The evidence concerns questionnaire-based performance and does not establish effects on business survival or causal benefits of financing.