The People of Kairuku in the Central Province have been encouraged by their member of parliament Peter Isoaimo to build strong cooperatives to grow the MSME and SME sectors in the district.
The people of Delena and Ukaukana LLG have 43 registered Cooperatives, these cooperatives will be receiving funding from the Kairuku District Development Authority (DDA) and they have been earmarked for K215,000 which equates to K5,000 for each of the cooperatives.
Member for Kairuku, Peter Isoaimo was in Ukaukana to meet with the Cooperatives.
Ukaukana United Church Pastor, John Aubo Aba said the opportunity to be self-sufficient and have a steady income was the goal for their church cooperative.
“Opportunity comes once in a lifetime, Ukaukana united church has initiated their own projects, a watermelon farm and a chicken farm, times are hard, and we want to be self-sufficient, I don’t want my people to go into poverty, it is not easy let me assure you we need capital to start and our member has helped.”
MP Isoaimo said Cooperatives are not new to the district as they were very popular during the pre- and post-independence era.
“Cooperatives started in the late 60s, our older folks took part in cooperative society, Kairuku also had a movement called the Kairuku Cooperative Society, what I am doing currently I am reviving a company that my predecessors got incorporated called the Kairuku Development Corporation limited.
“This company was incorporated by the first member of Kairuku Hiri, I am reviving this company to run along with the Kairuku District Development Authority, the company has assets in land in and around the Laloki area.
“My intention is to use the company to make business on the side to compliment the revenues from the DSIP,” Isoaimo said.
The Kairuku district has land available for largescale agriculture farming and organizing the people into cooperatives helps to channel funding from the DDA to help the farmers to get the required capital to start up business.
“Cooperatives are the way to go one of the reasons why I told you to get organized into corporative societies is because of the Public Finance Management Act, DSIP Monies earmarked for development sector by sector cannot be given to anyone individual.
“Under this law I cannot give money to individuals, all this SMEs must be organized into cooperatives, whether it be a family cooperative or clan cooperative, village cooperative or church cooperative, I am glad you all have organized yourself,” Isoaimo said.
He mentioned that agriculture in the district was a mainstay for the people and it was important that land was made available for farming to help established cooperatives to sell this agricultural produce to earn money.
“Cooperative society is the best model to go in the rural setting, try your best to move away from the bad culture and adapt best practices, Gabadi we are closer to the city we have arable land flat plains, we need to utilize the land to make money for the people, through and consented and collective effort by all the clans, I know in a village situation we have differences but we must start somewhere and its now, it’s all about working together, we start disputing land and boundaries we will never get anywhere,” Isoaimo said.
National Agriculture Research Institute representative, Morris Oromu urged the people of Ukaukana to utilise the services provided by NARI adding that it was an important partnership that will help in improving their yields in Agriculture.
“This is the focus for NARI working with communities, there is so much you can do on the land, and it is important to partner with the Government agencies, you can come get information from our Southern Region research centre, everything you need as a farmer can be obtained from NARI we have good facilities for farmers to use to improve their farming,” Oromu said.
