A report tabled by a Senatorial Standing Committee on Economic Development and Finance has outlined that even though cooperatives operating countrywide have made some commendable progress, some of them are still wanting.

The report, presented to the parliament last week by Senator Spéciose Ayinkamiye, says that during the committee’s assessment, attention was paid to how cooperatives are created and how they operate and challenges they face .

Ayinkamiye said that her committee visited several cooperatives in different districts assessing how the government’s policy of developing and empowering them was being implemented.

"We realized that people have started understanding the importance of cooperatives,” she said.

Ayinkamiye, however, added that some people have not realized that they have equal rights in sharing the profits and benefits of their cooperatives.

"There are people who consider cooperatives as a government initiative. Generally people join cooperatives because it’s an initiative from their area authorities,” she noted.

She also pointed out that some local leaders tend to believe that joining a cooperative is an obligation from the government and for that matter they tend to consider those that are not in cooperatives as being against government policies.

Generally, the Senate and the Ayinkamiye Commission hailed the Rwanda Cooperatives Association (RCA) for its on-going campaign to restructure and follow up the operations of cooperatives across the country.

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