15 Mar 2021

One uneventful day Ms Motshegetsi Maakelo and other Otse village youths dragged themselves to the kgotla to attend a kgotla meeting that was to be addressed by the then Member of Parliament (MP) for Shoshong, Mr Dikgang Makgalemele.

Because their Ipelegeng supervisors instructed them to attend the meeting, they could not afford to miss it lest they were considered absent from duty on the day in question and miss out on their day’s earnings.

In their minds it was the usual kgotla meeting that the MP always held after his return from a Parliament session and the poor attendance, especially by the youth, spoke volumes.

Unbeknown to them though was that this time around the MP came specifically to encourage the youth to form cooperatives so as to change their lives for the better.

It was after that kgotla meeting that Mmogo Re ka Dira Multi-Purpose Cooperative was conceptualised. “Re ne ra ipopa re le lesome le botlhano go dira koporase mme go ne go se motlhofo ka e ne ya re re ntse re tsweletse ba le babedi ba felela ba ikgogetse kwa morago,” Ms Maakelo, a member of the cooperative, explaining how the idea of the formation of a cooperative came into being. It indeed quickly dawned on the 15-member group that starting a cooperative was not as smooth as they thought it would be.

Despite that, they remained resolute in the pursuit of their dream and could not imagine letting go of it. Disheartening as it was, this state of affairs forced the members to soldier on and raise funds to cover the cost of the preliminary stages of setting up a cooperative with the meager wages they earned from Ipelegeng.

With the potential to take years before they could raise enough funds through saving part of their Ipelegeng wages, they had to change their course of action.

The determined youth then opted out of their Ipelegeng jobs and delved, though temporarily, into crop production, the idea being to sell produce to augment the savings they already had.

This plan too failed and another plan of action had to be hatched.

After having explored these few options, they decided to knock on the door of the Citizen Entrepreneurial Development Agency (CEDA) with the assistance of the Department of Cooperatives.

The latter took the group through training on cooperatives and equipped them with business management skills and went on to help them draw their constitution until the whole process was complete.

“Everything was ready except for funding so we had no choice, but to seek funding from CEDA even though initially the idea of CEDA had freaked us out a little because we thought CEDA only helped big businesses in urban areas,” Ms Maakelo notes.

In 2017, CEDA approved the P370 000 loan and within a short space of time things started falling into place.

The members rented a shopping complex in Otse, where they opened a grocery store on one side and a hardware on the other.

In addition they purchased stock, refrigerators, shelves and other materials. Mmogo Re ka Dira opened its doors to its very first customers in March 2018.

Not only did the cooperative benefit the members, it also changed the lives of the people of Otse by bringing services closer to them. No one in Otse today has to travel the long distance to Mahalapye to buy building materials or groceries because all those can be acquired locally at Mmogo Re Ka Dira Multi-Purpose Cooperative.

The cooperative has not only been the pride of Otse, but it has also changed the face of the small village.

However, like any other business, the cooperative is faced with a couple of teething problems among them being the high cost of transporting stock from suppliers to Otse.

The fact that the bulk of the profits get gobbled up by high rentals that the group pays for the use of the premises in which the cooperative operates is also a major setback that continues to make the dream to develop the business plot near impossible.

“We are paying an exorbitant P3 000 rental charged at 10 per cent annual interest,” she sadly explains. Despite these teething problems, the members are fighting tooth and nail to keep their business afloat, having started by securing a business plot, where they will build a permanent structure to operate in as well as looking for other companies to source products from.

Another member, Ms Monicah Dintho lays out the group’s plan to expand its business by spreading their wings to nearby villages and also exploring other avenues to generate income.

Having seen the cooperative’s potential to hold its place in the world of business, she pleads, particularly with government to give Mmogo Re ka Dira business whenever opportunities arise.

The survival of the cooperative, Ms Dintho reckons, will go a long way in helping create the much-needed jobs, especially for Otse residents and those of neighbouring villages.

The cooperative has so far benefited from the COVID-19 food supply tender last year and offers smart switch service, which enables orphans and other beneficiaries to buy groceries from the store.

As the COVID-19 pandemic has not spared any business entity, Mmogo re ka Dira is also bearing the brunt of economic losses.

“Our sales have been affected too,” Ms Dintho says, highlighting though that the group was nowhere near backing down from its dream to grow and secure a place among big players in the retail sub-sector. Ends