A subset of the informal financial institutions that has been recently used as lending conduits of special credit programs is the credit union system. However, they often face some resource constraints which prevent them from satisfying the credit demands of their members on time. Access to external sources of funds, such as those of special credit programs, could relax such constraint. This study examines the effects of two special credit programs of the government on the performance of credit unions. Specifically, it answers the question: to what extent did they affect the performance of the credit unions in terms of savings mobilization, credit allocation and profitability?