Vice President Mutale Nalumango says the new dawn government is looking to realign the cooperative movement away from depending on state coffers.
Ms Nalumango said government was a cooperative movement that will not extend begging bowls.
The Vice President said the UPND Alliance administration will engage India to help build the capacity of and turn around cooperatives in the country.
Ms Nalumango said it is imperative that the cooperative movement in the country is helped to grow in order for it to play a significant role in Zambia’s economic transformation agenda.
She said there are vital lessons Zambia can learn from the progress India’s cooperative movement has made over the last 120 years in impacting the economy.
The Vice President was speaking after touring the US$ 5 billion Anand Milk Union Limited (AMUL) dairy cooperative plant.
Ms Nalumango said the Amul Cooperative society model is a clear cut framework that can help Zambia’s cooperative movement arise from slumber and effectively participate and contribute to the country’s economic development.
“your organization, the way you run things, we would like to tap into that, help us set up, we are not saying, we want cooperatives that will have the hand of government, we would like to follow this model” said Ms Nalumango.
Amul Managing Director Rupinder Sodhi explained that micro level participation of members is cardinal to the effective operation of a cooperative society.
Mr Signh said that every member of Amul is treated equal regardless of their shareholding status.
“The famers cooperative model is based on self-sufficient, business Enterprise, …and it has to be operated from bottom to up, You need very dedicated selfless farmers’ leadership…” Said Mr Sodhi.
He stressed that leadership and management styles of top to bottom are a recipe for cooperatives to fail.
The Amul Dairy cooperative was founded in 1946 to address and has over 18,000 farmers as members supplying the plant with milk used to make various dairy products.
“Ms Nalumango said government was a cooperative movement that will not extend begging bowls.”
What a waste of time …how can you go abroad to go and talk about co-operative movement you clearly have no idea what it is all about its 100% dependent on local resources and sustaining it…you talk of begging bowls when you are clearly doing the same in India. I am very disappointed with this woman …
DUE TO OUR SELF IMPORTANCE AND GREED MOST COOPS IN THE COUNTY FAIL CONTINUOSLY
THE ONLY OUTSTANDING EXAMPLE IS LIVESTOCK SERVICES IN LUSAKA
This ugly woman who looks like katuka with a wig needs to give it a rest and tell us why she is shielding upnd members involved in the fertiliser corruption scandal
I will never join a cooperative. 99% are run by greedy corrupt managers. The four cooperatives here in Kanakantapa are all non transparent, you never know where your money has gone, there is no book keeping being done, and you always lose your deposit. In other countries cooperatives are a shining success. Not in Zambia!
My thinking is that Upnd knew that cooperatives existed and knew it’s areas of failures. To me as a viberant opposition they should have worked on this and just come to implement as a government.