Co-ops law to be reviewed

Pushing for change: Noh speaking at the launch of the 100-year celebration of the cooperative movement at a hotel in Kuala Lumpur. — ART CHEN/The Star

KUALA LUMPUR: The cooperatives governance structure and its legal system will be reviewed to be in line with current developments and needs, said the Entrepreneur Development and Cooperatives Minister.

Tan Sri Noh Omar said the review is to ensure the cooperatives movement can grow and move forward towards achieving the country’s socio-economic development objectives.

“The capability and capacity of the relevant cooperatives agencies, especially the Cooperative Commission of Malaysia (SKM) and Cooperative Institute of Malaysia (IKMa), will be empowered to encourage the development of the cooperatives movement to increase entrepreneurial activity and to support the entrepreneurial aspiration efforts of the country,” he said.

Noh said the legal reviews would be conducted as there must be a check and balance, as currently, the position of the president and executive are held by the same person.

“This needs to be separated,” he added.

Noh said this at the launch of the 100-year celebration of the cooperative movement yesterday.

The ministry, in collaboration with SKM, organised the celebration ceremony themed “Cooperatives Movement, Developing Keluarga Malaysia”.

Separately, with the rising cost of living, Noh said the government will launch the Program Pembangunan Sektor Pemborongan dan Peruncitan Koperasi to help reduce the prices of goods and the gap between the suppliers, manufacturers and consumers by reducing the involvement of intermediaries.“

Under this programme, the ministry will rebrand the cooperatives stores to Coopmart so that it would be more attractive.

“The government targets to establish more than 500 Coopmarts throughout Malaysia that will be operated by various cooperatives, especially in rural areas and areas where the majority are B40 residents,” he said.

Noh added that they target a Coopmart in every state assembly seat.

“It will be implemented in places such as the people’s housing projects and low-cost housing areas. This is our target,” he said.

Noh noted that there are 14,657 cooperatives with a total of 6.5 million members.

He said that the contribution of the cooperatives movement through shares capital raising and fees amounted to RM15.8bil with an asset generation of RM150.5bil, and a turnover of RM41.5bil.