By Cally Imbayi
Governor Wycliffe Oparanya says Kakamega County will spent Sh25 million to strengthen cooperative societies that have been performing poorly.
He revealed that they have prioritized streamlining of the cooperatives movement in the county to improve living standards.
“We have allocated Sh25million for development of the cooperatives sector out of which Sh18million will be given out as grants to 40 societies spread across the 12 sub counties,” said Oparanya.
Sh5 million will be used for capacity building to help the cooperatives improve governance structures and the keeping of records.
He regretted that the cooperatives in the county have performed poorly yet they were key to his agenda of alleviating poverty and ensuring economic growth.
The Governor was speaking during the launch of the free farm inputs program for the vulnerable women farmers in the county.
The County distributed free maize seeds and fertilizer to 24,000 women farmers across the County through the programme.
He said only active cooperatives with stable management that presented proposals to the department of cooperatives for approval will benefit from the grants.
The Governor said he has focused on supporting the cooperative movement to make it stable and vibrant to strengthen both production and marketing of farm inputs to generate more money to farmers.
“Cooperatives in Kakamega have been performing poorly because they have not been given adequate support by the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives,” he said.
Oparanya said he has put a lot of focus in the sector because it is critical to his agenda of boosting economic activities of residents to alleviate poverty.
The Chief Officer in charge of Agriculture Jeremiah Namunyu said the county has 316 cooperative societies half of which were dormant.
“We have an elaborate plan to revitalize the dormant ones by providing financial support and capacity building support,” he explained.
Namunyu noted that most of the cooperative societies were inefficient due to corruption and poor governance.
“We are putting more emphasis on improving the cooperatives’ financial management skills and governance because these are the areas that have affected growth of many of the organizations,” he noted.
He reiterated that the county had developed a legal framework that would guide in management of the cooperative societies.
Namunyu said are helping Community Based Organisations to transit to cooperatives so that they can benefit from funding from both the county and other partners.
“Cooperatives play a major role in filling value chain gaps for farmers, marketing their produce and negotiating for loans or grants from financial institutions and donors,” said Namunyu.
He assured them that more money will be allocated in the next budget to boost activities of the cooperatives movement in the county.
