The County Governments, the Senators, the Members of Parliament and all stakeholders in Western Province and North Rift who wish to unleash the economic potential of the regions under Devolved Government must confront the sorry state of the Co-operative Societies that exist and radically re-engineer their thinking, orientation and operations. That it is only through the Co-operative Institutions that the region can pool indigenous monetory resources to undertake capital intensive and high value and transformative economic projects that will also yield the highest creation of jobs. The question to be asked is how well or badly have the Co-operatives in the sugarcane sector performed? Have they been engines of enhancing the wealth, well being of farmers or have they turned into millstones, parasites sucking at the economic blood of sugarcane farmers? How has MOCO for Mumias sugarcane farmers and NOCO for Nzoia sugarcane farmers fared? Can they be called shining economic role models in our management of sugarcane farmers dreams or have they been nightmares and a pain to the farmers? If those co-operatives have been classical failures then what made them fail? Can the Devolved Government diagonize what has ailed the Co-operatives, fix them and let them be engines of economic liberation, economic transformation of our farmers? The Sugarcane Farmers Co-operative Organizations ought by now to have become the largest capital accumulation institutions that will be operating a vibrant dairy farming and milk processing plants in their zones and also running other economic ventures that Mumias Sugar Co. Ltd is engaged in. And what about the Co-operatives for teachers, have they delivered economic change, economic dividends to teachers or is it only those who manage or rather mismanage them who benefit? Has the thinking of the Teachers Co-operatives, Saccos been visionary or lethargic? Why would the Teachers Cooperatives fail to be on the frontiers of participating in emerging new economic opportunities of the region like developing and leasing out the hostels for university students at Masinde Muliro University of Science And Technology (MMUST) and its campuses like Kibabii and others? And what about hostels for the students at the various Government Training Institutions like the one at Webuye District Hospital and Bungoma District Hospital for Medical Training Colleges. And yes, there are a plethora of other economic ventures of high capital investment and returns that beckon in the region. Are the Teacher’s Co-operatives too conservative and mired in the past or are they agile, bold go-getters that can with foresight own the economic pillars of our region? Where do the Coffee – Co-operatives Societies stand in the region 50 years since independence? Are they still collecting and delivering raw coffee to coffee millers at Nairobi- Thika? Why can’t they themselves process coffee ready for the local and international market and thereby eliminating the unnecessary expensive middle actors at Nairobi. Is it tenable that 50 years since independence our Coffee Co-operatives are still operating on the same model used in the 1960s. How come most Co-operatives in Uganda right upto the neighbouring Bagishu Co-operatives are able to sell their coffee produce direct to the international market yet those in Western Province must be fleeced by middlemen in Nairobi or Mombasa. And who said our enterprising, hardworking boda boda operators can’t be organized into a vibrant Co-operative so as to harness their latent economic potential and slowly but surely take over the full breadth of the transport sector in the region. The Co-operative organizational model offers the only way the small but vibrant economic individuals in the region can pool together and enter large scale economic enterprises ranging from value addition to our agricultural produce, transport, housing for public institutions and even infrastructure. The challenge for all elected leaders is that we must think and think hard as to how we must do things differently from the way we have done them in the past 50 years if we are to realize true economic growth, wealth creation, job creation, better standards of living for the people of the region. The Co-operative movement was successful in the region in the 1960s and there are living legends who were its drivers and architects then who can be tapped to help us come up with new equally successful models. Mzee Musundi is still alive and the Co-operate Bank of Kenya which he helped create with other dedicated co-operators like him in 1969 is now an economic colossus in the whole of Kenya. The Devolved Governments must harness the potential of the Co- operative Movement as economic engines suited to involve the indigenous people of Western Province and North Rift to own and enjoy the fruits of economic transformation of their region. Any failure by the Devolved Governments to help re-engineer, re-orientate, refocus and mainstream the Co- operative Movement as the economic engines of the region will certainly translate to one inescapable outcome and that Devolved Government will pan out as a pitiable failure just as the National Government model managed from far flung Nairobi has been in the last 50 years. The challenge is for our elected leadership and the non-elected leadership and all stakeholders including churches, non-governmental organizations trade unions and all who aspire to witness a socio-economic renaissance of Western Province and North Rift anchored on the people of the region owning and driving their economic dreams and promises to re-engineer the Co-operatives as the most viable vehicles for that change. Wesonga is a director at PROWEMU an NGO under Mumias Progressive Welfare Society and also Director & Chairman investment Committee Elulu community Resource Centre.
Posted on: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 09:30:52 +0000
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