The original store was established in the early 1960s after an intense battle with a number of the traders and massive support from the community at large. I wrote not so long ago, with huge sadness, about the passing of Mothusi Seretse who was so greatly personally responsible for the early and continuing success of the Serowe trading and hotel coop enterprises when he managed them.
It was with considerable regret that I recently discovered that the Main Store is now simply a storeroom leased to Chinese traders. I wondered, in passing, what the mighty Mao whom I, once, so greatly (and, properly, at that distant time), admired - would have thought of that, had he still been around!
I should add, that this wasn't the first time that the Swaneng Consumers Cooperative Society had been in trouble. A decade or so ago earlier, it had first happened. Then, I worked together with a former policeman who had joined the staff of the Commissioner of Cooperative Societies to get the Society working properly, again. It succeeded for a while. Now, I'm led to believe that the Swaneng Consumer's Coop that is closed down owes a million Pula lent it by Government. What's being done about that? Not many of the consumer coops that were started all those years ago are still operational. The most successful coops are apparently thrift and loan societies. One of them, reportedly, may have savings of P30 million. Admittedly, consumers' coops are difficult to manage, especially in today's world when China is one of the world's leading industrialised nations producing a vast range of goods more cheaply than anyone else.
The problem is not with China, but with us, however. ConsumersāCoops can also stock Chinese-made goods and promote production themselves as the British Consumers Coops do.
I suspect that today's political leadership in our country is not interested in coops, perhaps not just not interested, but actually opposed to them. One still wonders why the Cooperative Bank was closed down, and nearly a decade later, no financial report is available to show why this was done. Is it that something has had to be hidden? One excuse was that all the properties owned by the Cooperative Bank had still to be valued. Has that taken so long, and what has actually happened to the assets?
Did anyone benefit from the closure of the Cooperative Bank? We know that board members and staff, maybe, were giving themselves loans, which still had to be fully reported and dealt with. Were their other beneficiaries?
The broad truth is that the Opposition Parties seem not to be any more interested in coops than the BDP and its Government. Certainly, we donāt hear any of them asking for a full report why the BCB was closed down. What are the legal costs and the costs of the auditors going to be after all this time has passed?
Quite apart from that, however, one doesn't hear any politicians talking about the development potential of producersā cooperatives at political meetings or in Parliament. If they are promoting coops and not being reported, they should be up in arms about that.
The BNF leadership of old took the view that our socio-economic development should be based on a mixed economy based on private enterprise, cooperative ownership and management, and state enterprise. I havenāt heard any Opposition leaders advocating this kind of overall approach to development, here, these days. Are all the Parties now in favour of privatisation? Who is to pay for the privatisation, and will the price be right?
Isn't it better to use such financing for new enterprises? I may not be well informed, but is there a mass of foreign direct investment out there waiting to buy our state-owned enterprises. Do we want our water, electricity, and food production and transport facilities to be owned by outside investors, anyway?
I am of the view that there is a place for producer's cooperatives in our society and that the Opposition should be calling for a strengthened government agency to support the establishment, maintenance and management of producersā cooperatives in all branches of the economy, all over the country. They work in China. They work in Spain. They work in Russia. They work in Bulgaria, Rumania and Estonia. They even work in the US of A.
The Namibians have shown an interest in establishing school cooperatives, which can be the training grounds for cooperative innovators and managers, and they had some success in this initiative when last I heard about them.
One might not expect to hear of support for such initiatives from Government and the BDP, but we should be hearing of it from Opposition Parties. If they are serious about socio-economic development they need to acknowledge the potential of producers coops and coops in general, and they should be seeking information on how to promote and develop them, as well as to encourage peopleās savings to be directed into reliable and honestly managed loan coops. .
