Cooperatives encouraged to take loan to develop their enterprises

KOTA KINABALU: Cooperatives in Sabah have applied for only less than RM10 million of the available RM50 million in the Working Capital Fund (TMP) allocated by the Cooperative Commission of Malaysia (CCM) last year.

Its deputy director of Promotion and Expansion, Syuhani Zulkiflee said this yesterday when presenting his speech at the Cooperative Malaysia College Training Programme Promotional Event 2013 Sabah Branch here.

She recommended that cooperative members in Sabah be encouraged to grab any opportunities allocated to them to continue developing their enterprises.

She said that cooperative members in Sabah still have the stigma of playing it too safe and do not dare to take risks.

“TMP is a fund allocated for eligible cooperatives and those who want to take a loan in order to develop their cooperative enterprise or anything else regarding their cooperative,” she said.

According to Syuhani, RM50 million has been allocated to the TMP fund in Sabah alone yet less than RM10 million have been applied for by cooperatives.

Answering a question on why local cooperatives are not very interested in applying, she said a possible reason is that cooperatives in Sabah did not want to assume the risk of repayment.

“I urge that all cooperatives in Sabah in this year of 2013 to boldly move forward to enter a bigger field; if you believe that your cooperative will be successful, so not be meek when grabbing any opportunity available,” she advised.

She added that local cooperatives should be more confident and bold such as their counterparts in the peninsula where he likened the TMP to be as ‘goreng pisang’ (quickly grabbed up).