Industry minister plans to bring co-ops back to life

Business

By HELEN TARAWA
Commerce and Industry Minister Wera Mori has told Parliament that the government will allocate K20 million for the re-establishment of cooperative societies in the country.
“We are making a submission under the 2019 Budget to seek K20 million to revive where possible all cooperatives and also in the process to create new cooperatives,” Mori said.
“Cooperatives were successful since it was incepted in 1947 up to independence. Thereafter, they fell out of the way.
“We have got to use cooperatives to revive many of our rundown plantations – whether it be coffee, cocoa or coconuts.”
Many of those plantations were closed because of the law and order situations and problems associated with landowners.
“By using cooperatives and engaging former traditional landowners living around those plantations as unit owners of the cooperatives, with the central investor, that will be the way to go to make cooperatives successful and also revive those plantations and get agricultural industry going.
“We are looking at that and I’m sure that once the 2019 Budget is framed, I would like to see that we have the K20 million set aside to establish new cooperatives and also partner with the National Development Bank so we can have special funding for cooperatives as a form of small to medium enterprise.”