The President and Chief Executive Officer of Cooperatives Rating and Award Society of Nigeria (CRASON), Victor Oyegoke, has stressed the need for government to collaborate with Cooperative Societies as key players in the diversification of the nation’s economy.
Oyegoke said that the ‘Next Level’ government of President Muhammadu Buhari needs to reach out and collaborate with the Cooperative sector to achieve its target goals for economy growth.
“A lot of Cooperatives are doing very great in all sector of the economy including: housing, transportation, trade and investment as well as health.
“In fact, a lot of them are building hospitals, educational centres, schools and hotels. So, I am seizing this opportunity to call on government to see the need to bring from the Cooperative sector a key person into the Economic Council Team of the Federal Government,” he said.
He also noted that Cooperative is a key collaborator towards making Federal Government’s Initiatives on Poverty Alleviation a success.
Addressing newsmen ahead of the 2nd National Cooperative Awards, Symposium and Exhibition billed for November 15-16, 2019 in Abuja, Oyegoke said that more than 1,000 Cooperative key decision makers are expected at the event.
The event, themed: ‘Strengthening Cooperatives to serve as Catalyst for Nigeria’s Socio- Economic Development’, will have experts discuss topics including: ‘Cooperatives and the Use of Technology’, ‘Leadership, Advocacy, Entrepreneurship skills’ and ‘Fund Raising Strategies for Cooperatives’ among others, he said.
“Cooperatives is about forming and pooling together of people with limited resources in order to achieve their socio-economic needs and aspirations.
“We discovered in doing that; most times, these funds are not enough, especially when their key activities begin to diversify as a lot of them want to go into housing and farming among others and they need money to start such businesses.
“So, we are bringing in some international funders and investors to come and talk to Cooperatives. We have a lot of development partners and finance institutions today that are doling out funds but lots of Cooperatives are not aware of them.
“It is going to be an avenue to bring a lot of these people together to face the Cooperatives and tell them how they can these access funds.
“Cooperative has gone beyond Esusu or Ajo. Today, we are talking of about the top 300 Cooperatives all over the world worth about $2.1trillion. This mean that Cooperative is big,” he explained.
Some of the important personalities expected at the event include Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, as special guest of honour; Minister of Agriculture and the Senate Chairman, Committee on Agriculture, among many other dignitaries.
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