Archive for month: August, 2019

Over 70 women Cooperators in Zombo District are out of work after their Cooperative’s coffee processing plant ceased operations due to lack of electricity.

The women – members of Okoro Coffee Cooperative, used to work at the cooperative’s coffee processing plant, but have since been laid off after the plant ceased operations in 2006.

Gilbert Wachal, the manager of Okoro Coffee cooperative told the Cooperator that their processing plant used to process 15million kilograms of coffee per season, but was forced to wind down operations due to exorbitant energy costs. “We were depending on a generator, using 600 liters of fuel in 10 to 12 hours. The cost was neither making business sense, nor sustainable, so we had to stop,” he said.

Although the electricity network passes just 100 meters from the cooperative factory, Wachal says that their appeals to the government to be connected have fallen on deaf ears. He said that when they contacted the Rural Electrification Agency (REA), they were told they needed a three-phase transformer to generate sufficient power to serve the factory, which they couldn’t afford.

Attempts to get help from the State Minister of Energy, Simon D’Ujanga who is also the Okoro County MP were not successful either. Instead, D’Ujanga asked the cooperators to be patient, saying that plans are already underway to connect Zombo district to the national grid, after the completion of the Karuma Hydro-power dam.

When contacted, a source from REA who preferred to speak on condition of anonymity because they’re not authorized to speak on behalf of the agency confirmed that the agency has already dispatched teams on the ground in Zombo to begin the work of connecting the district to the national grid.

Zombo district is one of the four districts yet to be connected to the national electricity grid. The others are Kotido, Kaabong and Buvuma Islands.

For now, Okoro Coffee Cooperative continues selling its coffee in raw form, forgoing significant revenue that the cooperative previously generated from selling processed coffee. “We have been deprived of other by-products of coffee like the husks which we would sell as manure to farmers,” says Wachal.

As a result, Wachal says, the cooperative has struggled financially, and today lacks sufficient capital to buy coffee from its member farmers, who have resorted to selling directly to middlemen.

As for the processing factory’s machinery, Wachal says it is intact, even though he fears it could have acquired minor faults due to years of inactivity. “When we eventually get connected to electricity, we will be able to detect if there are any faults or not,” he says.

For now, the Cooperative is being anchored on by We Effect– a global NGO focused on strengthening the capacity of small-holder farmers to form cooperatives through which they can better articulate their interests.

Okoro Coffee Cooperative was established in 1962 and presently boasts of 12,000 members. Among its other properties is a 50 ton-store located 6 kilometers away from Paidha town council, which also remains largely unused due to lack of capital.

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Kampala, Uganda: A boda boda (commercial motorcycle) cooperative in Makindye, a city suburb, has shaken itself off leadership woes to put a smile on faces of members.

Members of the Kampala Civil Centre Boda Boda Transporters Cooperative Society (KCCBT) say they faced tremendous challenges and were choked to near giving up when a new opportunity came in the mold of a non-governmental organisation, The Uhuru Institute for Social Development.

“Our cooperative reached a point where it seemed to belong to a few chosen members, privileged to receive services from the cooperative,” William Mubiru, a former board chairperson for the cooperative, said.

He said the cooperative society was marred by acute lack of transparency and accountability, leaving the noble cause they had started to uplift their livelihood suffocating.

As things went from bad to worse, they were hit by internal wrangles as the leaders jostled for any crumb they could lay their hands on while blaming one another for the mess.

Mubiru himself faced the wrath of the wrangles as he was impeached for incompetence in 2016.
When members finally pushed for accountability and the leaders could not account for the savings, the cooperative activities came to a standstill but was saved by the approach of The Uhuru Institute for Social Development whose two-day workshop proved a timely retrospective for the cooperative members to reflect upon their past mistakes.

Amissi Basoga, a pioneer member of the cooperative, said they have grown amid both challenges and success. He reveals that he was able to acquire his own motorcycle after more than 12 years of hiring.

He says this was possible through the Freedom Fund from Uhuru Institute that has enabled KCCBT members acquire more than 50 motorcycles.

To him, what has kept them together as a cooperative is the solidarity and trust among members which has been reinforced through training and emphasis on savings culture.

Leonard Okello, executive director of Uhuru Institute, taught the cooperators on how to carry on their administrative work. He challenged them to learn from their forefathers who succeeded in building large cooperatives under great strain in the 60s and 70s.

Okello said the future of Uganda depends on cooperatives and the strength of each cooperative lies on its membership.

“Cooperatives and their Board of Directors (BOD) look exactly as its members. So if you let the BOD down, even you as members lose out,” Okello said.

Ssekuluma Amiri Ssebowa, the treasurer of KCCBT, admitted that when they started the cooperative society in 2015 with just five motorcycles, they had no idea how to run it. This came with a leadership challenge.

He says by November 2016 – a few months after the Uhuru Institute workshop, they had saved Shs1.8 million, contributions from the 42 members they had at the time.

Today, they are in thousands targeting over Shs18 million by the end of December 2019.

“You can forget the past but you cannot forget what the past taught you,” reflects Mubiru, who recognizes that they have come from far.

He said this teaches the new leadership to be more transparent, accountable and democratic; saying he has faith in the current leadership of Lasto Ssemakula.

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