The Cooperatives Alliance of Kenya Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Daniel Marube has called on the government to come up with a national policy on cooperative development to spur economic growth in the country.
Speaking in Mombasa during an event to mark the world cooperatives day Saturday, Marube said a standardized national policy on activities of cooperative societies will spur growth across the 47 counties.
He said now that cooperative activities is a devolved function held by the county governments, the operationalization of a national policy to guide the sector will ensure harmony in the coordination of cooperative programmes in the country as opposed to the current scenario where each devolved unit is coming up with own laws.
Marube expressed frustrations that cooperatives popularly known as savings and credit cooperatives (Saccos) operating across the devolved units were not working in tandem due to lack of a national policy to guide their activities.
“We hope that such a unified policy relating to the formation, registration and regulation of cooperative societies will eliminate the existence of pyramid schemes that fleece members” he said during an interview at Mombasa showground.
He went on, “we are asking the relevant authorities to expedite the formation of a national cooperative development policy that guarantees the growth of the sector”.
He expressed regrets that pyramid like entities masquerading as Saccos were giving the cooperative movement a bad name besides fleecing the public of their savings.
The unionist said the cooperative societies in the country cut across the key economic sectors including Finance and Housing.
Marube at the same time said the Sacco movement is paying a heavy price for failure by counties and few public agencies and institutions like universities to remit workers monthly contributions.
He pointed out Mombasa county government as being notorious for non-remittance saying the devolved unit owes the cooperatives more than Sh.100 million.
On his part, Mombasa County Deputy Governor Dr. William Kingi expressed willingness to remit the workers monthly contributions.
He asked the Sacco to partner with the county government in the provision of affordable and descent housing for the middle and lower income segments of the population.
By Mohamed Hassan
