Co-operative

Members ' Debts Eat Up Profits

Registrar Slates Banabans Over Co-operative

From a Suva Correspondent The Banaban community of Fiji’s Rabi Island, who have

recently been complaining about

not getting a fair share of phos

phate royalties from Ocean

Island, their homeland, do not

get much sympathy from Fiji’s

Registrar of Co-operative

Societies, Mr. F. E. M. Warner, on their overall economic situa tion.

IN his annual report for 1964, Mr.

Warner says that their current economic plight is partly their own fault.

The report recalls that the four registered copra-marketing societies in Rabi’s four villages were amalgamated into a single society with branches at the end of 1963.

This was to concentrate the limited available managerial skill and estab lish a firmer control over several stores. These stores, which had been “irresponsibly managed and riddled with unpaid debt”, had threatened to destroy both themselves and the copra-marketing branches.

The amalgamation failed to achieve its purpose due to the con tinuing unwillingness of the members either to discipline themselves or to accept any form of control from their leaders.

“By the end of the first year of operations,” Mr. Warner says, “un paid members’ debts in the stores had consumed the whole of the surplus gained from both marketing and consumers’ branches.

No Penitence

“No penitent reaction resulted from the sad state of affairs. The members, indignant at the loss of their bonus and blaming everyone but themselves, only criticised the department for failure to devise an economic plan under which un controlled and unpaid debt could flourish side by side with profits.”

Mr. Warner says the co-operative holds the monopoly of copra-market ing on the island and much of its

irresponsibility is directly due to the absence of competition.

As it furnishes the only outlet for the members’ produce, it cannot be permitted to fad, and the people have been finally warned that any further failure in the stores, which jeopardises the security of marketing operations, will lead to the closure of the stores.

There were 342 Banaban members of the society in 1964—an increase of 59 on the previous year. Six hundred tons of copra were marketed in 1964, compared with 725 tons in 1963. The value was up, however, by £8,680 and the turnover in the stores increased from £27,004 in 1963 to £39,774. On the other hand, distributable profits were nil in 1964, compared with £5,677 the previous year.

The Banabans are not the only ones to come in for criticism from Mr, Warner. The Lautoka Co operative Association Ltd., in Fiji’s second largest town, almost went on the rocks with its retail store in Namoli Avenue.

During its first year of trading, in 1963, it recorded a turnover of £15,194 but, Mr. Warner complains, “from the beginning its members and committee took only a casual interest in its affairs and, due to careless management and control, it incurred a loss of £1,375,” Mr. Warner adds:— “Trade creditors were owed £2,974. In the interests of the creditors, the department has since been obliged practically to assume control of the management. In carry ing out this task it has received little support from the members either in interest or patronage.

“The cause of failure appears to be the unwillingness or inability of the members to turn from credit to cash trading.”