CITIZENS should be on high alert for some unscrupulous people masquerading as officers from the ministry who are helping individual register cooperatives and charging exorbitant fees, the Ministry of Small and Medium Enterprises has said.
Permanent Secretary Subeta Mutelo told The Scoop that citizens should utilize the online cooperative society registering services to avoid being swindled.
Ms. Mutelo said that the online registering platforms could be accessed by all citizens anywhere across the country as long as there was internet connectivity.
“The public should be aware that the Ministry of Small and Medium Enterprises, has since May, rolled out the online cooperative society through the Government Service Bus (GSB) Zamportal. The online services can be accessed by anyone across the country. The online portal was implemented to improve effectiveness and efficiency of the registering of co-operatives,” Ms. Mutelo said.
“It has come to light to the ministry that some people are charging exorbitant fees to register cooperatives of unsuspected individuals and issuing fake certificates of registered cooperatives. This came to light when the claimed registered cooperatives approached Commercial Banks for account opening. These incidences have been recorded in Muchinga, Eastern, Western, and Central provinces,” Ms. Mutelo said.
She said that members of the public should utilize the provincial or district cooperative offices to get the guidance on how to register their societies and emphasized that her ministry had not accredited or assigned any business house or internet café or any other business entity to issue the certificates for cooperatives.
She urged stakeholders to ensure that they engage the ministry before cooperatives sought for empowerment and other related programs to ascertain the credibility and authenticity of their certificates.
She said that the Government was committed to ensuring that many Zambians benefited from the many opportunities being offered or the businesses.
She further emphasized on the need for cooperatives to work together and help pass on credible information to one another in a bid to create a more inclusive environment for many to have their cooperatives registered.