ADDIS ABABA – Cooperatives’ market intervention with extended assistance from government will curb the unnatural causes of current market price inflation, said the Ethiopian Cooperatives Agency.
Osman Surur Director General at Agency told The Ethiopian Herald that the cooperatives have been efficiently empowered over the past seven years and could play a crucial role in balancing the market system and controlling the overpoweringly rising commodity price throughout the country.
He said the cooperatives’ contribution in the market has been positively proved during the recent holy days.They reduced the prices of commodities by certain amount. For instance, the price of onion decreased from 35 Birr to 18 Birr on the aforementioned time without any significant intervention from governmental or private actors just because cooperatives played a role in supplying the commodities in the market.
Osman noted that the mission of cooperatives is creating a healthy environment and ensuring fair benefits of all communities from the local market but not controlling the whole system.
He said the socioeconomic contribution of cooperatives is increasing from time to time. One of the indicators is that 98 percent supply of agricultural inputs and technologies including mechanization equipment are being covered by cooperatives.
On the other hand, their local market exchange contribution in terms of agricultural products has rapidly increased. Their exchange share by 2014 was not more than one million quintals but this has grown to 13 million quintals during the past fiscal year. And this is an indicator that cooperatives’ capacity is increasing gradually, said Osman.
However, there are major challenges that are pulling back the role of cooperatives from maintaining their responsibilities. The first problem is financial shortage, for the fact that they do not have enough capital. Because of this, the cooperatives are not able to buy agricultural commodities from farmers and cover the market demand as expected.
The other factor is that they do not have sufficient storage and shades to supply their products in the market. They also have problems in terms of modernizing their operating system due to lack of well-established professional management, according to him.
“Currently the Agency in collaboration with different administrative bodies is exerting effort to alleviate these problems. The Addis Ababa City administration and the Federal Government with the Agency have planned to build five storage as well as bazaar centers in major entry points of the City, which the cooperatives will provide agricultural products for sell in a permanent basis. Efforts to this end are already started,” said Osman.
The number of basic cooperative has currently reached 89,000. There are 388 unions with 21 million members throughout the Country.
The Ethiopian Herald Sunday Edition October 13/2019
BY HENOK TIBEBU
