President released the Executive Order No. 1 of 2022 on 13th October 2022 in which he outlined the functions of the various government Ministries and State Departments.
One noticeable change is the relocation of the headquarter of the (new) Ministry of Cooperatives and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) Development from NSSF Building to Teleposta Towers.
In terms of functions assigned to the State Department of Cooperatives, the Executive Order has listed nine (9) functions that have remained unchanged prior to and after the advent of Devolution almost ten years ago!.
For instance, the function of “Supervision and Oversight of cooperatives” is assigned to the State Department yet “Cooperatives The ” is among the devolved functions.
On the other hand, the newly-created State Department of MSME Development has a total of fifteen (15) functions assigned to it.
Since ‘funds follow functions’ , it won’t be surprising if the MSME Department will attract more resources than the State Department of Cooperatives!
Again, it is in public domain that the creation of the “Hustler Fund” goes to the core of the Kenya Kwanza Manifesto hence it is likely to be accorded special attention both in facilitation and funding.
Therefore, to circumvent the pitfalls experienced in the past , the MSME department should spare no efforts in changing the mindset of the target beneficiaries so they make the Hustler Revolving Fund successful and sustainable.
It is not lost on us that efforts by the previous regimes to administer similar funds were abused and/or embezzled altogether in some cases by those charged with the funds’ administration.
I have no doubt in my mind that this time round, there will be no room for abuse of the Hustler Fund and any such attempts shall face dire consequences.
What must, however, be stated unequivocally is that administration of the fund may not , after all, be a walk in the park !
Again, the fund may not necessarily provide the magic bullet or panacea to the poor economic conditions of the target groups.!
There will be necessity for intensive capacity building before and during the roll out period..
The earlier proposal by some cooperatives stakeholders to have the hustler fund channelled through saccos was, in my view, ill-advised because they ( saccos ) exist primarily to inculcate a savings culture among like-minded persons who are their members besides extending affordable credit to them.
Saccos do not exist to be used as conduits for channelling public funds to persons who are not necessarily their members hence not bound by their bylaws and policies.!
If that were to happen, the credibility of the saccos would suffer irreparably in the event the loanees defaulted..
So let the saccos continue playing their important roles without being tempted to handle the Hustler Fund which, in the fullness
of time, cold turn out to be a blessing or a curse in equal measure to the entities administering it!
That noted, I wish to strongly propose that the following should , inter alia, be additional functions of the State Department of Cooperatives;
I. Research and Innovation;
ii. Capacity building of devolved units(county officers and cooperative movement stakeholders);
iii. Support ICT uptake in the cooperative movement;
iv .Support revival of the various value chains in agriculture and promote value addition .
There is no justification to single out savings and credit cooperatives (saccos) for support yet Kenya’s economy is predominantly agricultural.
The situation obtaining now in the country is some counties are yet to formulate county policies nor enact county laws for lack of capacity both technical and financial which could be addressed had they been listed as stand-alone functions in the Executive Order .
What is factual is, the functions of the State Department of Cooperatives have remained unchanged despite the sector having been devolved following the promulgation of the 2010 Constitution .
I remain optimistic the relevant authorities will see merit in this and act expeditiously if the State Department has to play its rightful role in service delivery to the citizenry otherwise I foresee the MSME Development State Department eclipsing it in terms of attention and even funding from the Exchequer.
Sitati Fred
COOPERATIVE CONSULTANT
sitati.fred@yahoo.com.
