Imo Professional Staff Cooperative Society records capital growth

The Imo Professional Staff Cooperative Thrift and Loans Society Limited has made appreciable capital growth in its 14 years of existence, Val Eze Duruobisiri, the president, told BusinessDay in an interview in Owerri, the Imo State capital.

Duruobisiri says that through the management under him, the total assets of the Cooperative Society now stands at over N35 million from zero level, when he took over few years back. “When we took over from the former management committee, we discovered that the society was sinking, because from the records, the past managements achieved little or nothing. In other words, the present management committee which I’m heading, we started from nowhere. But as it stands we have cash at hand of about N7 million, which is intact in our various bank savings accounts. We have lent out N20 million at 2.5 percent rate, which is in circulation.

‘’When the beneficiaries repay their loans, which they do monthly in bits, we would have more money. We have some fixed property, including a landed property at Ezeogba in Emekukwu. By the time you sum up our money in circulation, the money in our savings account and the value of our landed property l want to tell you that we are heading to N35 million as our assets,” he says.

On accessing the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) N220 billion Small and Medium Enterprises fund, the president says they have yet to know about that: “Nobody has assisted this society in anything or manner. No external assistance. Whatever we have today is purely our internal effort.”

Duruobisiri advises the members, as well as the public to imbibe the spirit of savings, saying “when you save you are investing. The rule is that when you retire, we give you your savings and possibly the interest. Also, any member that want to withdraw voluntarily from the savings, we give him or her his savings together with his interest.”

On entry conditions for outsiders who are not necessarily civil servants, into the Imo Professional Staff Cooperative Society, the president says: “Outsiders who are cooperators institutionally, in other words, those who have certificate in cooperative studies, either with OND, HND and BSc are qualified to join us. Also, civil and public servants resident or working in