{{Uganda is spearheading the passing of the East African Community Cooperative Societies Bill 2014 that is currently being scrutinized by the East African legislative Assembly (EALA).}}<\/p>\n
The bill which was read for the first time during EALA\u2019s session in Kampala in January 2014 is a private member\u2019s bill by Uganda\u2019s EALA representative Mike Ssebalu.<\/p>\n
According to Ssebalu, the bill which is being studied by partner states is intended to transform the cooperative sector in respective countries for economic development.<\/p>\n
The bill is also intended to strengthen the emerging cooperative societies with in the region and also empower the existing cooperatives.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis proposed bill if passed into law, will bring fresh blood to the cooperative society movement , we hope to exploit regional integration process by removing legal and administrative barriers to do business , however this should not compromise with internationally agreed cooperative principles,\u201d said Elizabeth Nsimadala.<\/p>\n
Nsimadala, who is the Regional women representative Eastern African farmers\u2019 federation Uganda cooperative Alliance, made the remarks in Kampala during the stakeholders meeting to discuss the bill.<\/p>\n
Leonard Msemakweli, the secretary general Uganda cooperatives alliance said there was need to set standards in the cooperative movement for improved regional trade using cooperatives.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the East African community cooperative societies law in place, we are likely to see increased expertise and resource mobilization within the region and this means economic development for our region,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
However some of the stakeholders that attended the meeting urged the framers of the proposed law to ensure that grassroots farmers are involved to ensure sustainability of locally produced goods that are consumed through cooperatives.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to ensure that all local farmers are oraganised in groups so that they can benefit from this,\u201d said Moses Kibirige, the African region manager financial and privatization sector World Bank.<\/p>\n
The bill in its current form proposes heavy penalties such as deregistration to regional cooperative societies that go astray.<\/p>\n
It also proposes a decrease in the current number of 30 people that are required to register a cooperative society to only 10 people for easy registration.<\/p>\n
According to a study, Uganda last amended its cooperatives society Act in 1991, Tanzania in 2003, Kenya in 2004, Rwanda in 2007 and Burundi in 2011.<\/p>\n
NV<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{Uganda is spearheading the passing of the East African Community Cooperative Societies Bill 2014 that is currently being scrutinized by the East African legislative Assembly (EALA).}} The bill which was read for the first time during EALA\u2019s session in Kampala in January 2014 is a private member\u2019s bill by Uganda\u2019s EALA representative Mike Ssebalu. According […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2000051751,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[99],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-13985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000051751,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13985.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13985.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13985.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13985.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13985.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13985.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000051751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13985"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=13985"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=13985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}