Phikwe Coop Venture Into Property Investment

CALISTUS KOLANTSHO
Correspondent | Monday June 10, 2013 00:00

The co-operative specialised in goods trading in supermarkets and nearly collapsed two years ago due to mounting debts. One of its officials,Tebogo Venson has told Mmegi Business that as part of a turn-around strategy, they are moving away from trading to property.'We want to move away from trading and venture into estate development. We are moving away from trading because of tough competition from chain stores.We have been into trading for many years and all we faced was challenges such as theft of stock and money,' he said.He explained that it is difficult to keep track of everything in trading, especially when the system in place is not working properly.

He said that real estate business is much better and they expect to do well after shifting focus.He said that when they came into office, the society was on the verge of collapse due to debts but that is all in the past.We stated that the first item on their agenda was to turn around the business and make sure that it is profitable.Venson said the cooperative has cleared its debt of around P4 million.He said some of their creditors were threatening court action but they devised an effective plan with the help of the Department of Cooperatives to clear the debts. The co-operative earns rentals amounting to P133,253 monthly. Some of the tenants are Beares Furnishers and Shoppers Supermarket. Venson said he was frustrated when he discovered that members owned a multi-million pula business but are not benefiting from it. He pointed out that his plan is to make sure members are paid dividends as soon as things stabilise.

He asserted that since the government is talking of transformation strategy for co-operatives, the societies should also be seen to be doing things differently.Meanwhile, Venson said all members of the Selebi-Phikwe Co-operative Society executive committee were re-elected last week.He explained that members have shown that they were impressed with the committee's performance, hence it was elected again to continue driving the co-operative society in its quest to return to profitability.