The purpose of a cooperative society is to help members meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs through a jointly owned and democratically managed organisation, providing benefits like access to affordable loans, fair prices for goods, housing, and other services by fostering thrift and cooperation among members. These societies empower their members by working together to achieve goals and overcome challenges that they might not be able to address individually.
Key purposes and objectives: to promote thrift and saving as members are encouraged to save regularly to build funds for their personal and collective future use.
Provide Financial Services:
Cooperatives offer loans to members at lower interest rates and with more convenient repayment terms than traditional banks.
Lower Costs and Fair Prices:
By eliminating middlemen and operating on a larger scale, cooperatives can acquire and distribute goods and services to members at fair and reasonable prices.
Fulfil Diverse Needs:
Depending on the type of cooperative, purposes can include providing access to housing, educational opportunities, healthcare, and consumer or producer goods.
Empower Members:
Cooperatives foster cooperation and encourage active participation from their members in the management and operation of the organisation.
Reduce Inequality:
By aggregating resources and distributing benefits among members, cooperatives can help reduce economic inequality and improve the overall welfare of their members.
Foster Community Development:
Cooperatives contribute to community development by investing in infrastructure, education, and other facilities that benefit the wider community.
Soft loans to members should be the priority. Members should be given as much funding as possible to empower them.
Members’ businesses should be key. Civil servants who have a consistent source of income are the worst hit by the tactics of modern-day cooperatives, which have shifted focus from serving members to banking services and making huge, unaccountable profits. Cooperative now engages in profit-making businesses. Funds that should be allocated to members for their business are now diverted to the cooperative. Profits emanating from such businesses are easily mismanaged since they don’t belong to members. We are therefore calling for a review of the extant laws that govern the establishment of cooperative societies.
