Cooperative societies in need of funding

By MALUM NALU

Cooperative societies are in urgent need of government funding, according to Registrar of Cooperative Societies of PNG Joseph Ingipa.

This is unlike the past when cooperative societies were very effective in Papua New Guinea.

Ingipa said for this year, the government had allocated K3 million, of which K400, 000 had been set aside as seed capital.

Registrar of Cooperative Societies of PNG Joseph Ingipa

This K400, 000 had been split up with K100, 000 going to each of the four regions.

Ingipa said this on Wednesday as Commerce and Industry Minister, Charles Abel, gave K50, 000 to Ungai-Bena MP Benny Allan for the Eastern Highlands Coffee Cooperative Society.

Both Abel and Allan acknowledged that cooperative societies needed more assistance from the government.

“This K3 million is not enough,” Allan said when receiving the K50, 000 from Abel.

“We should put more money into cooperatives.

“We already have an Eastern Highlands Coffee Growers’ Cooperative to get our coffee growers together.

“This money will be used to assist coffee growers of Eastern Highlands.”

The co-operative societies movement was introduced to PNG in 1947, and had worked successfully from the 1950s to the early 1970s, bringing goods and services closer to the rural areas, mobilising people and enabling them to undertake socio-economic activities, thus generating income to sustain their livelihood.

Co-operative societies then were developed under the four-tier level structure, namely the primary, district (association), regional (union), and national (federation) that affiliated to the international body.

There were four types of co-operative societies developed then and operated in the country, which were: consumer co-operative, marketing co-operative, producers co-operative and credit co-operative.

The formation of these societies then were centered on developing a trade network for distribution of import goods, collection of raw materials for export and mobilising of funds for new socio-economic activities.

The movement became dysfunctional after the Co-operative Societies Ordinance (1965) was repealed by the then House of Assembly in 1974.