Abuja – The Federal Government has urged the National Cooperative Financing Agency (CFAN) to increase its support for cooperative movements, as they are the vehicles for delivering goods to the rural populace.
The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, made this call in a keynote address at the 2nd CFAN cooperative summit on Tuesday in Abuja.
Ogbe said: “As the apex cooperative, we are confident that you are better placed to give direction to issues affecting the movement and global best practices’’.
He noted that the desired change in the sub-sector was to upgrade the Federal Department of Cooperatives to a full-fledged commission like the Corporate Affairs Commission with budgetary allocation.
The minister said this would enable the agency deliver on its mandate since all government development efforts were geared towards the use of cooperative enterprises for service delivery to the common man.
Ogbeh noted that the ministry had played innovative roles in repositioning the cooperative movement in Nigeria to deliver on its mandate.
He said this could be seen in the cooperative curriculum for Federal Cooperative Colleges, which had been reviewed and made attractive.
“Farmers have their best times with the tractor hiring system made affordable and accessible and they have easy access to fertilizer, farm inputs and seedlings.
“ Introduction of the warehouse receipt system with attendant storage and collateral effects, re-branding and repositioning of cooperative apexes to deliver on their core mandates.
“Review of cooperative development policy-in progress, creation of cooperative data base and implementation of community based health insurance in cooperative societies among others,’’ he said.
Ogbeh said the policies and institutional reforms by the sub-sector had produced the desired impact through collaboration and partnership for achievement of inclusive financial growth and capacity development.
Mr Akintoye Akintola, Federal Director, Cooperatives, said“from now till 2026, we believe that the cooperative sub-sector will be able to contribute a minimum of 30 per cent GDP to our country’’.
Akintola said: “In this regard, all cooperatives are enjoined to intensify efforts in their businesses because it is when we have business investments that we can support effectively the government of our nation.
He said in the current economic downturn, it was important for one to be interested in what he or she could do for himself or herself and not what the government could do for him or her.
“The determination for us to raise our seed money for cooperative development fund is important, because when the government sees what we can do for ourselves, it will be encouraged to support us.
“Also in this era, if Nigerians embrace the principles of cooperatives, our society will be the better for it,’’ he said. (NAN)