The Director General of Rwanda Cooperative Agency has assured the public of the effective performance of cooperative societies in order to attain the set goals. The Agency which came into existence in 2005 is meant to monitor, supervise and advise cooperatives to avoid poor performance as well as to register them. Mugabo said that given the strategies put in place, he is optimistic that operations will be monitored well to avoid cooperatives from disappointing their members. “We have set proper arrangements which will ensure transparency between the Agency and members of different cooperatives,” said Mugabo during an exclusive interview with The New Times. He said that members of registered cooperatives will be directly communicating to the agency in case some issues cannot be solved within the cooperatives. According to Mugabo, more tools to fight poor management and misallocation of funds which can break out have been put in place to ensure that cooperatives do not suffer unnecessary financial losses. Government has embarked on a plan to encourage different associations to merge into cooperatives. He said that some of the measures that have been put in place include constant monitoring of the activities of these cooperatives which he said would facilitate detecting any inconsistencies that arise at the earliest stage. He also advised leaders of the cooperatives to work diligently and understand the value of cooperatives. “It’s not all about finding who has done what, it only calls for personal commitment to execute duties assigned to any person,” he said. He added that proper book-keeping was another measure to curb any out break which can frustrate efforts of the cooperatives, saying that they intend to put in place auditors to closely monitor them. “Our auditors will be deployed to audit the books of accounts periodically and in case of any inconsistency, the appropriate law will take its course,” he stressed. Explaining further, he said that cooperatives are a strong tool to fight poverty in a developing country like Rwanda. According to Mugabo, the Agency started with 919 cooperatives in 2005 and has since registered more 200. Ends
