Cooperatives Development

Q: What is required to form a cooperative society?
A: The following criteria are used:

  • People with a common need.
  • Bye-laws (from MTTI) to guide the operation.
  • Proper record keeping to enable periodical reporting to members.
  • Member patronage in a cooperative business is done by the members so individual members must be prepared to do business with the cooperatives.

Q: How can the rural people, especially cooperators, access financial services after the privatization of the Cooperative Bank?
A: By forming savings and credit cooperative societies.

Q: Most farmers have resorted to growing perishable food crops instead of the traditional cash crops (Coffee and cotton); what should we do to reduce the perish ability of the crops?
A: Farmers should form area cooperative marketing enterprises which will help farmers to market their produce and add value to what they are producing.

Q: What happened to our Cooperative Unions? Are they still in existence?
A: Cooperative Unions have been neglected by the owners. However, the Ministry advice now is to ask the owners to revive the unions. Furthermore, the leaders of the unions were asked to produce the business plans by end of May, 2005.

Q:What sort of support does the Government give to Cooperative Movement?

  • Support is in terms of policy formulation and oversight.
  • Government is reviewing cooperative policy to incorporate new areas of cooperative activities and also to harmonize cooperative development policy in one document.
  • Government is responsible for enforcement of cooperative rules. Thus, Government regulates and monitors cooperative activities.
  • Government links cooperative to development partners like EU, SCC. For example, SCC helps cooperative movement to develop village banks. Similarly, EU helps Government in establishment of commodity exchange (Uganda Agricultural Commodity Exchange).

Q: How does the Ministry intend to develop a cooperative business into a vibrant business?
A: The following criteria are observed: The Ministry ensures that there is accountability, application of good business practices, as well as good governance of especially leadership and management; and capacity building of the cooperative members.

Q: How does the Ministry interact with the cooperators in decentralized districts ?
A: The Commissioner for Cooperative Department is mandated by the law to be the registrar of all cooperatives in Uganda. Therefore, the linkage is through the local governing council and through the departments responsible for cooperatives. The law gives the registrar powers of arbitration.

Q: How many broad types of cooperatives are in Uganda?
A: They are five broad types namely:

* Production cooperatives.
* Agricultural marketing.
* Financial services.
* Industrial.
* Services cooperative.
