…as he announces the new NCFE Board.
MBABANE – The Minister of Commerce has pledged that the Ministry will continue to support the National Cooperatives Federation of Eswatini (NCFE) as it arranges to have its own bank.
Minister of Commerce, Manqoba Khumalo was speaking when he was announcing the new Board of Directors of the NCFE.
Minister Khumalo recalled that the plans to establish a bank for cooperatives has been under development for some time, and reminded the cooperatives that the ministry was ready to assist them.
“The issue of the cooperatives bank is overdue. If I understand very well from four years ago, the amount of money which circulated among cooperatives in Eswatini was over E3 billion. If you had your own bank, that E3 billion would have doubled by now because the bank would have been giving out loans which then get charged interest which comes back to the members,” said the Minister when pointing out the economic benefits of the cooperatives bank.
“What we want to know as the Ministry is what is stalling progress in establishing the bank, so that we can help with the different stakeholders you need to work with. We will definitely assist you where we can,” added the Minister of Commerce.
The President of the Eswatini’s umbrella organisation for cooperatives, Sifiso Mhlongo, expanded on some of the other problems they may have.
“We would appreciate your help with some of the associations which are agriculture-based here. You find that they have produced their goods but there is no market, whereas we are aware that in other countries like Taiwan, there are often markets for our produce. We would like to establish export partnerships, and the ministry’s support in this regard would be most beneficial to our agricultural cooperatives,” said Mhlongo.
The Board of Directors comprises 10 members from different cooperative organisations around the country. There is also a supervisory committee of three members.
