KUCHING, June 14 — The Ministry of Entrepreneur and Co-operative Development (Medac) is developing a co-operative transformation plan to enhance the effectiveness and professionalism of cooperative governance.

Medac Secretary-General Datuk Seri Mohammad Mentek said today the plan would focus on enhancing the co-operatives’ ability to generate income and subsequently provide profit and welfare benefits for its members.

"A good co-operative should have a good management, trustworthy and also good judgment in diversifying types of businesses to generate income,” he told reporters after visiting Perkasa Ar-Rahnu, Koperasi Koperkasa Sarawak Berhad here today.

He sid the transformation plan would also involve the identifications of inactive co-operatives including those that only collected fees from members but were not involved in economic and business activities that could benefit the co-operatives and their members

"We will be reviewing the definition of the term active and inactive co-operatives. At present co-operatives which only receive membership fees but do not carry out economic activities are still categorised as active,” he said.

Mohammad said there were 14,624 co-operatives throughout Malaysia registered with the Cooperative Commission of Malaysia (SKM) including 1,077 in Sarawak.

"Of that number, 3,200 are inactive, while more than 1,000 have shut own, including 125 in Sarawak,” he said.

Meanwhile, he also praised Koperkasa’s success in diversifying its businesses including into the real estate sector to help its members buy homes.

According to Mohammad, Koperkasa also posted a net profit of RM10.192 million last year compared to RM7.380 million in 2018 and this success should be emulated by other co-operatives in the country.

"Being the top 16 co-operatives out of 14, 624 co-operatives in Malaysia at the moment, I am confident that Koperkasa will achieve its goal of emerging as the top 10 co-operatives across Malaysia in the next five years,” he said. — Bernama