RUMONGE March 7th (ABP) – The community development department is conducting a public awareness-raising campaign for the creation of cooperatives in accordance with the law governing cooperatives promulgated by the President of the Republic on June 28, 2017.
Some clauses stipulate that they will be able to benefit from loans at affordable interest rates. Also the sectors of agricultural, artisanal, educational and sanitary transformation organized in cooperatives will see the taxes of their imports in equipment exempted for 5 years.
Those clauses were announced by Pierre Claver Niyonizigiye, provincial chief of plan antenna in Rumonge province, at the time of the public awareness-raising campaign for the creation of cooperatives.
The public expressed concern that cooperatives would be affordable only for the category of people with a lot of money. Concerns were also expressed about the management of co-op finances, with some explaining that in the past funds from associations or cooperatives were stolen by managers.
Mr. Niyonizigiye said that cooperatives are not exclusively affordable by those who have a lot of means; everyone can join them, “a cooperative can be created simply from 10 people who can associate with only 1,000 BIF, “he said. And he called on instead that several associations organize themselves into a cooperative by putting together their financial means.
With regard to the misappropriation of funds, he said that a cooperative has its own internal organization that allows electing officials they have full confidence to them for good financial management. He proposes the opening of bank accounts for those cooperatives, which can even become micro-finance granting loans to members of cooperatives because it has been noticed that associations have difficulty in receiving loans from banking institutions and microfinance.
The campaign has already been conducted in Muhuta, Bugarama, Burambi and Buyengero communes. Six domains are listed in the field of cooperative groups: agriculture and livestock, trade, service offer, mining, savings and loans, and finally the multifunctional