1,279 cooperatives in Sabah

TAWAU: There are currently 1,279 cooperatives in Sabah with 350,364 members and RM40,895,968 of share capital and RM100,771,357 of share fees as well as RM762,638,981 assets.

The government through the National Cooperative Policy 20112020 (DKN) II has outlined five key strategies to help the cooperative movement in the country by increasing their contribution to national output to RM50 billion by 2020.

Director general of the Cooperative College of Malaysia (MKM), Prof Madya Dr Abdul Rahman Bin Abdul Razak Shaik said the changes in the Malaysian economic landscape requires cooperatives to move in tandem and it would be a challenge for them to contribute towards making Malaysia a high-income developed country by 2020.

With this in mind, the government has allocated several facilities and amenities to generate a conducive environment for cooperatives to enhance their capabilities.

“It is undeniable that a successful cooperative depends on its board members (ALK), a dynamic management and its supporting general personnel. The ALK should apply the mindset of outstanding leaders to ensure the objectives of the cooperative in producing effective and high quality products or services could be achieved,” said Abdul Rahman at the Sabah professionals talk held at Promenade Hotel here yesterday.

“Besides that, skills-pooling among members will also produce synergies of diversity in thought, skills and experiences. Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) is one of the self-success concepts which can contribute to the quality of work and effective management methods.

“There has to be leadership capability to transform human capital in order to realize a progressive and competitive cooperative. Generating a model individual drives a cooperative to success,” he said.

He added that the effectiveness of cooperative institutions in changing the standard of living should be improved from time to time.