Cooperatives rising again
Jul 06, 2013
They had factories, farms, and commercial buildings, transport trucks and yes a bank, the former Co-operative Bank on William Street in Kampala. The ambitious people worked in the co-operatives. They are all gone but the co-operative unknown to many is alive.
By Christopher Bendana
They had factories, farms, and commercial buildings, transport trucks and yes a bank, the former Co-operative Bank on William Street in Kampala. The ambitious people worked in the co-operatives. They are all gone but the co-operative unknown to many is alive.
Many co-operatives have their genesis after the formation of the Uganda Cooperative Alliance in 1961. Banyankore Kweterane Cooperatives Union, and Bugisu Co-operative Union were formed after in the 1960s and are some of the few that still exist.
These unions provided the farmers with a steady income as they would buy from the farmers at a fixed amount. Farmers lived modest lives educating their children and building permanent homes. They taught farmers agronomy. They also provided farm inputs like seeds, and fertilizers.
Then the liberalisation of the 1990s came in and the co-operatives collapsed.
Leonard Msemakweli, general secretary Uganda Co-operative Alliance Ltd says the collapse was a manifestation of both internal and external factors.
He says their dependence on government and donors for finance made them dependents. The problem was compounded by borrowing from banks.
He castigates the donors who he says killed the cooperatives so that the people become easy to control.
“You know when people have money you don’t control them,” he argues. “The donors didn’t want people to have money.”
Msemakweli is opportunistic that the cooperative will rise again. He is proud of the few that have withstood the storm.
He mentions Banyankore Kweterane Cooperatives Union in the West which up to now is exporting coffee to Europe, Bugisu Co-operatives Union in the East. It is a huge organisation that its leaderships positions heats up the politics in the Bugisu region. The union is also engaged in activities like university sponsorship of needy students from the region. There are others, like Wamala in Mityana which deals in edible oils.
He says they have been able to put up structures across the country and they are now able to voice the concerns of their members. They help interested groups form organisations up to the time of registration and provide capacity building and logistics support.
He says UCA represents their members in policy matters with relevant authorities. He reveals that there are so far 500 primary societies, 240 Savings and Credit Co-operatives Societies (SACCOs), 80 secondary societies and five national unions since they started revamping the society in 1997.
These include Ankole Coffee Producers Co-operative, Sheema Dairies, Nyabubaare Area Co-operative Enterprise among others.
He describes the cooperative goal as lifting the rural poor from poverty.
“Our effort is geared towards the rural areas,” he adds. “We now have the structures in place.”
He requests Government to intervene, and help cooperatives access soft loans for capital investments like the building of silos, purchase of tractors.
Building of silos is important in improving the rural poor famers’ income as many times farmers loss their produce during the post-harvest time. Also many farmers sell their produce immediately after harvest as they lack storage facilities.
“We want to process and add value to the produce, and to do this we need capital assets,” he explains in support of farmers to access soft loans.
He would also like to see government exempt cooperatives from taxes like corporation tax.
He decries the way their defaulters are handled. “The law in which they are handled is weak,” he argues. “Our cases are usually referred to arbitration rather than in the courts.”
Cooperatives should be considered as businesses so that they are not refereed to arbitration. He believes depositors’ money should also be handled more seriously.
Recently, the press has been awash with reports of loss of money in cooperative especially SACCOs.
Several international organisations are partners with UCA. These include the former Swedish Co-operatives, the Canadian Co-operative Association, and the Norwegian Cooperative Association, GIZ, VEDCO among others.
“These organisations see the importance of cooperation,” he argues.
He says they are soon opening a mechanisation unit to provide services to farmers at an affordable cost. The programme is beginning with the northern region.
“There the opportunities are huge especially in grains,” he explains.
Every year the world celebrates the International Cooperative Day, every first Saturday of July. This year’s theme is ‘Co-operatives enterprise remain strong in time of crisis’.
According to the International Cooperative Alliance the aim of the day is to increase awareness of co-operatives and promote the movement’s successes and ideals of international solidarity, economic efficiency, equality, and world peace.
