The Valenzuela City Cooperative Development Office (CDO) is breathing new life to ningas-cogon or underperforming cooperatives in the city with the Koop-liance and Koop-ihan program.

 

Launched on Tuesday, September 3, the program seeks to stimulate growth in the sector by offering technical assistance to both fledgling and established cooperatives, holding seminars for managers and staff, linking cooperatives with banks and other funding institutions, and promoting compliance to regulations and standards.

 

“Starting and running a cooperative is one thing but turning it into a successful and lasting enterprise is another,” said CDO Officer- in- charge Maria Veronica Chongco in a forum attended by representatives of 37 cooperatives at the Valenzuela City Hall.

 

“We want cooperatives in Valenzuela to last. We don’t want them to be ningas-cogon, performing well only at the beginning only to die down later,” said Chongco, whose office was hailed 2^nd Best Local Government Unit CDO by the Cooperative Development Agency last July.

 

Chongco said the common reasons cooperatives fail are poor management, inadequate reserves, absence of internal control and lack of prudent rules and regulations.

 

“While there is no guarantee that a cooperative will succeed, there are some things that can be done to give it the best chance,” Chongco said.

 

Chongco said cooperatives who would enrol themselves to the program would first be assessed by the CDO to identify the areas they should improve on.

 

Once the weak areas are identified, the CDO and the cooperatives would come up with appropriate measures to address them.

 

A cooperative that needs help on recruiting members would be partnered with a bigger cooperative which could mentor the former.

 

A cooperative that wants to grow its assets would be linked by the CDO to a bank that could lend it money.

Groups who want to start their own cooperatives, on the other hand, would be provided with technical assistance by the CDO.

 

Chongco said that besides building managerial competencies, a cooperative would prosper by complying with the regulations and standards set by the CDA, the government’s regulatory body for cooperatives.

 

“Compliance to the rules and standards conveys that the cooperative is well-run by its managers,” Chongco said.

Managers of cooperatives see the value in Koop-liance and Koop-ihan.

 

Tess Ocampo, vice president of the 18-year-old Bagbaguin Multipurpose Cooperative, said she appreciates it that the program makes information and assistance readily available to cooperatives.

 

“When a cooperative wants to train its personnel, it knows now where to turn to,” said Ocampo.

CDO data show 77 registered cooperatives in the city today.

 

Holy Cross Savings and Credit Cooperative and San Juan De La Cruz Parish Savings and Credit Cooperative were hailed last July by the CDA as Most Outstanding Large-scale Cooperative and Small-scale Cooperative, respectively. Valenzuela Development Cooperative landed 2^nd in the Medium-scale Cooperatives category.