Masunga calls on cooperatives to be innovative
Lebogang Mosikare | Tuesday August 23, 2022 06:00
Masunga said cooperatives should devise creative and innovative ways of harnessing the immense diverse potential to remain relevant in today’s cutthroat competitive trading industry.
He was speaking at the Annual General Meeting of the Francistown Multi-Purpose Cooperative Society Limited (FMPCSL) on Saturday at Cresta Thapama Hotel.
The event was held under the theme ‘Our Cooperatives, Our Pride’. Masunga underscored the cooperative imperative saying that they have the ability to promote economic and social responses to the challenges of change that are prevalent in the current trading environment. In his keynote address, he challenged the cooperatives to pay keen attention to the track record of candidates before electing them to office, noting that the founding goals of the cooperative should guide members’ choice of who leads them and who’s best suited to lead them towards attaining them.
Masunga told the cooperators that in the past government provided prime land to cooperatives in order to enable them to grow. He also called upon cooperatives to keep proper books of record, profile members, and be ready to take advantage of emerging business trends such as online marketing and advertising.
Masunga mentioned that in 2011, government developed the Cooperative Transformation Strategy as a cooperative blueprint that paved way for any business to be registered as a viable cooperative entity and also gradually shifted from registering traditional cooperatives only, to the registration of non-traditional cooperatives in the sectors of production and manufacturing.
The strategy, he noted, is a panacea to challenges that cooperatives face in their day-to-day existence. “Cooperatives can play a very meaningful role in developing the economy of Francistown and also create the much-needed job opportunities for the youth.
Therefore, there is a need for cooperators to adopt the Reset Agenda in line with what President Mokgweetsi Masisi has said for cooperatives to stay relevant in today’s competitive trading environment,” Masunga said, adding that FMPCSL should not sell its land but use it to improve its business fortunes.
Masunga also made a clarion call to young people to join cooperatives in large numbers.
Giving the board a report about some of the major projects that FMPCSL wants to embark on, chairperson of FMPCSL Smarts Shabani said they want to construct a three-storey building which they want to lease. The building, Shabani said, will cost P21 million.