SHEEMA – While several cooperatives around the country suffered serious setbacks during the Covid-19 induced lockdown, Ankole Coffee Producers Cooperative Union (ACPCU) located in Kabwohe Town Council, Sheema Municipality registered a 10% increase in total assets, according to John Nuwagaba, the Union’s General Manager (GM).
“Compared to the previous year, I think there was some great improvement in total assets despite Covid-19,” says Nuwagaba.
During the Annual General Meeting (AGM) held at the Union premises last week, ACPCU disclosed a slight growth in the Financial Year 2020/2021 compared to 2019/2020.
It accumulated a profit of Shs 605 million compared to Shs 428 million in 2019/2020, with a turnover of Shs 23.7 billion compared to Shs 22.3 billion in FY 2019/2020 and a share capital of Shs.6,888,160,000.
“Our profits increased by Shs 200 million, our share capital is now more than 3 billion and assets have grown to slightly more than 20 billion but still we need to build our working capital so that it matches the level of the assets we have,” says Nuwagaba.
Unlike the previous AGMs, this time around the Annual General Assembly was unique in that all the 130 participants were subjected to a rapid Covid-19 test at the Union’s Medical Clinic located within the vicinity.
“We’ve got our own clinic here at the coffee facility and the district also trained our health team. So, we purchased the testing kits and tested our staff. We also found it necessary to rapidly test all our delegates on Tuesday before holding the first pre-AGM such that we don’t give room to the spread of Covid-19 to any of our farmers,” said Nuwagaba.
He says that during the three-day pre-AGMs, a number of farmer expectations, financial, board, committee reports, and budgets were all discussed before reaching conclusive resolutions that were cemented during the AGM on Friday.
“During the AGM, it was like confirming what was discussed during the three-day pre-AGMs which started on Tuesday,” says Nuwagaba.
Some of the resolutions approved include; more leadership and governance trainings, coffee traceability, farmer trainings on climate change, penalties to non-complaint coffee farmers on guidelines, soil testing, loan provisions to farmers, mobilization of more women into coffee farming among others.
Another extensive discussion was on how to kick-start a union SACCO which Nuwagaba says, if by-laws are finalized, it will be operational by January 2022.
“We haven’t finalized on the by-laws of the ACPCU SACCO but I think we shall work with those who are experienced and also work on our strategic plan. We discussed and approved how it will start and who will constitute the board,” said Nuwagaba.
He adds that the union SACCO is a total commitment of its affiliated primary society members who have already saved about Shs.1.4billion from the premium pay to enable its operations.
“Members have raised about Shs.1.4 billion which will include their shares and membership fees to start. As soon as our by-laws have been fine-tuned, we can start and then pursue the registration later but I think by January 2022, the SACCO should be operational,” Nuwagaba said.
The General Manager insists that the SACCO will only be restricted to ACPCU members without considering non-members for its sustainability.
“The SACCO is basically for ACPCU which has its own members. It is exclusively for ACPCU farmers because we have the numbers and for you to join, you must be our member and a coffee farmer who is supplying coffee to ACPCU,” says Nuwagaba.
Asaph Bainomugisha, the Treasurer, Nyeibingo Cooperative Society affiliated to ACPCU says, once started, the financial institution shall address other financial needs which farmers have been facing.
“We hope the SACCO will help the farmers to improve on their cash flow and it will enable them access affordable financial services for investment,” Bainomugisha said.
Also, Eliezer Bamuhangaine, one of the union members attached to Katenga-Omunjoki Growers in Mitoma district thanked ACPCU for thinking about their own SACCO which he believes will rescue him from money lenders.
“With the ushering in of the ACPCU SACCO, I will no longer get cheated by money lenders because I will be rest assured of acquiring the loan I want and pay it in time without getting any other pressures,” says Bamuhangaine.
Nuwagaba also stressed that, the union SACCO will help to build its loyal members.
“If they can be able to access affordable finance from their own SACCO of course we are going to have a fair interest rate because we are a cooperative and we are not supposed to maximize benefits of members,” he added.
Nuwagaba attributed the drastic growth of ACPCU since 2006 to good leadership and smooth transition of power.
“Since inception, we have tried as much as possible to be transparent and as employees, we have been given the liberty to transparently recruit workers without undue influence of the board, that makes the staff more committed and hardworking. Building good relations with our traders and other stakeholders has helped us to keep focused,” Nuwagaba explained.
He however intimated that, being an upcountry based organization, they face a challenge of internet connection to run the union affairs digitally.
“In this area, we don’t have an internet cable yet, for now going forward most of the businesses depends on online connections such as zoom meetings that has challenged us to conduct other businesses,” said the GM.
According to Yekonia Tumwijeho, the Human Resource Manager, ACPCU targets to double its coffee export from 50,370 bags to over 100,000 bags to become a leading local coffee export organization in Uganda.
“Currently, we buy close 5-6 million kilograms of coffee from farmers and contribute 0.88%, so we are not even reaching 1% of the total national export but our dream is to move from that level and double the exports to over 100,000 bags,” said Tumwijeho.
ACPCU has 20 primary cooperatives with a total number of 14,000 members and employs a total of 87 permanent staff and 170 casual workers.
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