Ugandan co-operatives have welcomed a parliamentary proposal to revive the national co-op sector.
Since 2017 the Uganda Co-operative Alliance, has been campaigning to have more funding to stimulate the co-operative sector. Last September the organisation led a team of co-operators who presented a ten-point paper to the Speaker of the Parliament. The issues were taken into account by legislators, who recently passed a budget framework paper that included a UGS 20bn (USD $5565.48) allocation for co-operatives.
Passing the paper, MPs argued that reviving the co-operative sector would promote commercial agriculture and improve the economic welfare of the majority of Ugandans who depend on it. Read more on this on CICOPA’s website.
Uganda coop movement to revive the Co-operative Bank
On 18 January, representatives from the organisation met to discuss the possibility setting up a new co-operative bank to provide affordable services to co-operative businesses. They say this would require around UGS 100bn (USD $27.88m). The former Uganda Co-operative Bank was liquidated eight years ago.
The budget framework paper also looked at covering war losses suffered by co-operative societies, some of which are struggling to retain property due to debts. To address this, MPs suggested the government provide UGS 45bn (USD $19.43m) to clear the debts owed to co-operative unions. So far, the government has provided only UGS 2.1bn (USD $58,543) of the requested amount.
