Coops can create employment

Mar 21, 2005

As a person who has been involved in cooperatives since 1956, I was overjoyed when I read the “Suruma strategy” in the Sunday Vision of February, 20. I support his proposals on cooperatives.

As a person who has been involved in cooperatives since 1956, I was overjoyed when I read the “Suruma strategy” in the Sunday Vision of February, 20. I support his proposals on cooperatives.

The strength of cooperatives lies in the fact that they are grassroots organisations, multi-sectoral and pervade every aspect of human endeavour, in rural or urban areas.
Cooperatives lessen the problem of rural-urban migration by creating employment opportunities in farming and artisan activities in rural areas.

In this age of globalisation, cooperatives should be at the heart of the country’s development programmes.

Both members and non-members of the cooperative movement have blamed governments for what befell the cooperatives. In the spirit of development, questions like “Who killed cooperatives?”

should be taken for the purpose of not repeating past mistakes, not pointing fingers because a number of factors contributed to the decline.

Cooperatives were plagued by internal and external problems like mismanagement, under capitalisation and under-empowered membership, political interference, unfavarourable macro-economic policies, wars of liberalisation and stiff competition due to globalisation, liberalisation, decentralisation policies and civil service reforms.

We should thank the minister for inviting stakeholders (such as UMA) to map the way forward. The same invitation be extended to cooperators, through Uganda Cooperative Alliance (UCA).

It is actually possible for the Government to assist cooperatives with a conducive environment and be directly involved in the management. The Cooperative Societies Act 1970 that gave ministers powers to appoint any officer for any cooperative society or union was repealed and replaced by the Cooperative Societies Statute 1991, which removed the powers from the minister and gave autonomy to the coop movement.

The success of the new cooperatives will greatly depend on the ways cooperatives are promoted. One ways is where coops are donor-funded.

Another way is cooperatives being formed according to an ideology — like the MOSHAV in Israel or the Ujaama in Tanzania. Here, the problem comes when the majority of the population does not subscribe to the ideology.

The third way is where the Government helps in the formation of the societies, mans and finances them. The other way is the spontaneous approach, where members with a similar problem come together to overcome the problem like what happened in Uganda in 1913 when the oppressed farmers came together to fight exploitation by alien traders and legislators.

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});