12 Mar 2019

 Co-operative societies have been implored to consider setting up a bank so as to further entrench themselves as key players in the economy of Botswana.

Officiating at the Motswedi Savings and Credit Co-operative Society (SACCOS) annual general meeting on March 9, Assistant Minister of Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development Mr Dikgang Makgalemele said the move would make co-operative societies more attractive.

Mr Makgalemele noted that the idea was implementable as it had been done in other countries such as Tanzania, where co-operative societies had set up the Kilimanjaro Co-operative Bank.

The assistant minister, who is also MP for Shoshong, said the fact that the concept had been tried in the past and the bank had failed, did not mean that it could not be attempted again.

On the issue of developing communities, he appealed to Motswedi SACCOS to explore ways of contributing to the development of the country through such initiatives as Adopt-A-School, through which they could help a school of their choice in different ways.

He observed that while the societies had an outstanding track record of helping develop the nation, there still remained room for improvement.

Moreover, the assistant minister called on Motswedi SACCOS to position itself to benefit from the P45 billion that had been set aside in the budget for the 2019/20 financial year for procurement of goods and services by government, saying other companies were always finding ways through which they could take advantage of such opportunities. 

In addition, he advised the society to vigorously explore other ways of bringing in revenue into its coffers. 

Mr Makgalemele also informed the society’s members that they needed to understand that the environment in which their co-operative operated had high local and international standards to which the society had to conform.

He noted that the standards would not be lowered to accommodate co-operatives, hence they needed to strive to meet the dictates of those standards.

Earlier when welcoming members to the meeting, Motswedi SACCOS chairperson Mr Molemi Tsheboeng highlighted that it was necessary to raise awareness on co-operatives as well as to teach them about the societies so that they could fully understand how they operated.

Mr Tsheboeng further underscored the importance of establishing well-defined value chains in co-operatives as was the case in other countries. ENDS