The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Cooperatives has advised cooperative societies to consolidate their efforts for development.

The Ministry is concerned that leaders in cooperative societies spend a lot of time engaging in unnecessary fights rather than discussing and finding solutions to the challenges that affect their development and that of the industry.

The State Minister for Cooperatives, Fredrick Ngobi Gume explains that unity among the cooperative societies should be a priority if they are to transform themselves and the country.

About the Cooperative Bank, the Minister thinks that cooperative societies have over 14 million members, big enough to start a bank if they were organized.

Meanwhile, Ivan Asiimwe, the General Secretary of the Uganda Cooperative Alliance, an umbrella body for all cooperatives in the country, mentioned some of the challenges of the sector especially being that they are governed by three laws which he says is unnecessary and the slow pace of digitization of their operations.

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