Southern Highlands launches cooperative society rollout

THE Southern Highlands provincial administration launched its cooperative societyprogramme last Friday to help people earn their living in an honest way.
The concept is to get people to organise themselves in their communities and engage in income-generating activities and at the same time do away with the false claims mentality at the Agiru Centre, the provincial headquarters building.
The cooperative society is a unit parked in the Department of Commerce and Industry but it is not well known or implemented at the provincial level.
Provincial administrator William Powi, who was the first director of the division, opened an office in 2008 and last Friday officially launched its programme.
Powi told a crowd at Momei oval that corporate societies were a vehicle to change people’s lives for the better.
Registered groups with little capital can apply for cash incentives and technical advice to engage in income-generating activities.
He said so far, 790 groups had registered and urged people to organise themselves in their communities and register with the society.
Powi told the people to identify what sort of activities they could be involved in competently such as farming, inland fisheries, poultry, piggery, dewing, lodges, guest house or other income generating activities.
He appealed to the people not to follow their parliamentarians to ask for free handouts and make use of the resources available through the cooperative society’s office.