The co-operative sector is one of the key economic drivers which contribute hugely to social and economic development in Murang’a County.
In this consideration, the Murang’a County Assembly has been challenged to craft legal frameworks which would enable this crucial sector to upscale performance.
According to the chairman of Amica Sacco Society, Hezron Muchiri, county assembly has not drafted any laws to address obstacles engulfing the cooperative industry which is a devolved function in the 2010 constitution.
Speaking to the SaccoReview in his Amica headquarters office, the chairman said that local members of county assembly have failed to involve stakeholders to identify the gaps, weaknesses, and impediments facing the sector in the county.
Muchiri says as a devolved function the sector requires legal structure to strengthen capacities and open new streams of investments beyond the traditional functions.
He suggested that one of the areas is creation of a county based revolving fund to provide loans to cooperative societies.
Such a credit facility would boost financial capital of cooperative societies and empower them to serve their members effectively with affordable loans, he said.
The chairman added revolving fund will act as capital to enable societies run and sustain themselves adding that the fund will also help Saccos to invest in agricultural processing industries among others. This, he said, will address poverty, unemployment, challenges in agriculture and economy of this county among other benefits.
Muchiri observes that the county has a culture and history of cooperative based investments thus policies in place would assist to boost growth of cooperative movement in the area.
The chairman says cooperatives have the resources to enable residents to create household based income generating projects and self-employment for the majority of local people.
