01 Dec 2016

Mmabesi cooperative strives to accomplish its mandate irrespective of the challenges it faces.

This was revealed by the cooperative chairperson, Mr Albert Kenosi who said the idea of the cooperative was to bring community businesses together.

The chairperson added that this also included ensuring sustainable lifestyles and creation of employment within the community.

Mr Kenosi said the cooperative started with six groups which were engaged in different project with each group having 10 members.

“The areas of specialisation for each group were tile manufacturing, detergents, cooking oil manufacturing, floor polish, paint and sweets,” Kenosi added.

He said most of the projects failed due to varied reasons but the most common was lack of machinery to enable production.

The cooking oil production, he said failed because they did not have a supplier of raw materials.

On the other hand, the tile production group had only one person who was able to use their product.

“The passing away of the individual therefore saw a collapse in the group due to lack of market,” said Kenosi.

According to the chairperson, the collapse of the four other groups saw the paint and detergent groups merging together to become one unit of production.

He stated that the group which was specialising in the paint was the only one which prospered whereas some of the members of the detergents were very inactive.

Mr Kenosi cited that most of the members complained of insufficient returns from the production.

The chairperson revealed that in 1996, the Department of Women Affairs, through the Financial Assistance Policy funded the group and including training of the members.

He said in an attempt to expand their market, the cooperative has since resolved to sell some of their shares at P10 000 of which half of the amount should be paid upon joining the cooperative whereas the remaining could be paid within a year.

The chair stated that pricing of the shares was influenced by the fact that they were looking for serious investors who will be determined to take the cooperative to another level.

Mmabesi cooperative he said was faced with a number of challenges including lack of market or if any and fierce competition with other products especially imported ones.

He said at the moment the cooperative produced items like paint, dishwashing soap, fabric softener, foam bath, pine gel, cherry gel, bath soap, shampoo, floor polish, bleach, stain remover, shower gel and hand soap. ENDS