Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua on Friday urged Savings and Cooperative Societies(Saccos) to tap into the digital economy in a bid to expand their investment portfolios and enhance businesses.
The DP said Sacco’s must be innovative to tap into the emerging high-value market bases like the digital economy.
“While we boast of the growth in membership and deposits, we must be innovative to tap into emerging high-value- but ignored market bases like the digital economy. Under the Ministry of ICT, we are rolling out a 100,000 kilometre digital superhighway to create more job opportunities in the online platforms,” said the Deputy President.
He spoke in Meru town at the 30th Anniversary Celebrations of Solution Sacco.
The DP urged the Saccos to recruit the youth in the cooperative movement.
“Including the youth into the cooperative movement makes them part of the solutions to the day to day challenges like Cyber crimes. Against rising competition from other institutions, there is need to tailor products to tap into the informal sectors as well as the creative, sports and artisan sections of our economy,” said Gachagua.
“We want to enhance saving culture in Kenya so that we borrow our own money. Initially we used to borrow from foreign countries money saved by citizens of those countries,” he added.
He stated that the Government is committed to work with the cooperative movement in creating sustainable communities under the Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda.
“Under the Kenya Kwanza Plan, cooperatives play a key role in aggregation of produce for better returns to farmers. A stable cooperative movement is a key pillar as we lead public sector reforms, specifically in the Tea, Coffee and Dairy sub-sectors,” he stated.
The DP was accompanied by Cabinet Secretaries Mithika Linturi (Agriculture) and Simon Chelugui (Cooperatives), Principal Secretary State Department for Co-operatives Patrick Kilemi, Meru governor Kawira Mwangaza and her Laikipia counter Joshua Irungu, the Sacco’s CEO Daniel Kinyua Marete and Chairman Francis Muriithi.
