The Cooperative Financing Agency of Nigeria ((CFAN) has urged the federal and state governments to strengthen regulatory functions in cooperatives to ensure growth and transparency of cooperative business in the country.
The Executive Secretary of CFAN, Mr Emmanuel Atama, made the call in an interview with newsmen in Abuja yesterday.
Atama said that aside the issue of access to funds and ease of doing business, weak regulation was one of the major challenges of cooperative business in Nigeria.
According to him, because of weak regulations, many individuals just wake up and establish cooperative societies in their environs with the intention to loot funds of unsuspecting members.
He said,” these cooperatives do not hold Annual General Meetings, they don’t render accounts to their members, all they do is to eat the monies from members.
“The bottom line is that the regulation is weak, by the law and by the constitution, cooperative is on the concurrent list of the legislature.
“And it beholds state government and the FCT Administration through the office of the Chief Registrar of Cooperative to provide regulation for the cooperatives.
“And at the federal level, it is domiciled in the Federal Department of Cooperative, Ministry of Agric, but we discovered that both at federal and state levels, there is failure of regulation,’’ Atama said.
The executive secretary also urged the government to set up a National Cooperative Commission of Nigeria to help resolve the issue of weak regulation in the subsector.
He said if there was a specific body set up for the regulation of cooperatives in the country, such a body would beam more light in cooperative business and achieve greater results.
On the issue of cooperatives that do not want to register with the national body, Atama said many of such cooperative societies did  not have the interest of members at heart.
According to him, many of such cooperatives are in business only to source for intervention funds from the government and other bodies to enrich their pockets.
“If you look at the Cooperative Act, it requires that once you set up a cooperative, the cooperative should be able to give loans to their members first of all.
“But you will discover that most of the cooperatives you see around are just doing what they feel like and most times when they come to you, they just want to know what they can benefit.
“Also, the CBN focus is not on those who are on established organisations because they believe that those cooperatives in establishments are already earning a living through the work they are doing.
“Whatever funds CBN is bringing out is to see how they can support those who are struggling to make a living, those SMEs and some of these cooperatives don’t understand that.’’
He said the National Assembly was working at amending the Cooperative Act, to ensure punishment, fee and fines for misconduct or wrong-doing in cooperative businesses.
Atama reiterated the gains of being a member of the national cooperative body among which was mentorship, linkage to intervention funds, guarantee and training/capacity building.
The Tide source recalls that CFAN recently entered a partnership with Smarter Grid International to ensure inclusive growth and development of its members across the country.
The partnership was to ensure that members were provided with steady power supply to enable them to do their businesses and train members on installation of renewable energy.
Smarter Grid is a renewable energy company that deals precisely on solar home system and business systems.