2.3.2 COOPERATIVES LOANS AND CAPITAL FORMATION
Cooperative loans are the most critical aspect of cooperatives benefit and activities. There are a number of previous studies that have commented on this; Tsekpo,(2007) emphasis that cooperative societies enhances capital formation which go a long way in expanding the investment profile of its members, including the acquisition of property for future gain, educational support for their children which is seen as an investment in intellectual capital with the hope that the child will be gainfully employed and it will transform to future gain for him, creation of capital goods or goods capable of producing other goods. Saving habits are encouraged tremendously which ultimately put the members in better position to tackle avoidable emergencies. Wanyama, Develtere & Pollet (2008) also posited that Cooperatives is increasingly becoming a major source of productive resources that are made available to their members for a variety of uses; the most common is the income- generation opportunities make possible due to growing abilities of these cooperatives to mobilize substantial savings from which members can borrow. For instance, it is observed that major part of the cooperative loans taken by members in Lagos State Polytechnic Cooperative Societies are use to support informal businesses they established in other to supplement their wage and salary. Cooperatives loan comes in various form to members of a society, it can be in form of major capital given based on the level of contribution which are majorly substantial enough and it can also be emergency or soft loan that are taken to take care of contingencies as quick as possible, soft loan is not as substantial as the major capital loans. Chaitra (2010) observed that, this major reason contributed to the growth of some types of cooperative societies peculiar to various sector of the economy for instance, Thrift, savings and loan cooperative societies among the working class within the economy so that what can’t be achieved individually can as well be achieved collectively. The loans collected are use to undertake various project that enhance assets acquisition, increased their access to major items that may not ordinarily be access if not cooperatives. It also goes a long way to strengthening the domain of transferability i.e transferring out the assets to command the welfare needed (Bharadwaj 2012). Oseni, Ogunniyi and Sanni (2012) also posited that the paramount reasons to members of cooperatives are the access to cheap loans for acquisition of assets and saving for the raining day.
2.3.3 EMPLOYMENT IMPACT OF COOPERATIVE SOCIETIES
Various authors have submitted on the major employment impacts of cooperatives societies both in developed, developing and under- developed nations of the world. Wanyama et.al (2008) opined that Cooperative societies create employment opportunities in major three ways starting from the view of the personnel directly employed to run the ventures of different levels of the societies and the various government and non- governmental agencies providing support services to the cooperatives e.g ministries, departments and cooperatives college, to the offer of self employment it gives to members whose participation in economic activities substantially guarantees decent income, as well as indirect employment base on the spillover effect of cooperatives activities on non-members whose income come only from the transactional relationship with the cooperative ventures. Of all the three stated, direct wage employment presents the least contribution to employment generation even though data have shown the substantial numbers of people are directly been engaged at various government and non- governmental agencies. (Lagos State Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperative, 2013). Thuvachote (2011) also posited that cooperative societies create and maintaining employment in rural and urban areas, employment opportunities are created as a production enterprise that directly employed their personnel and as service provider that indirectly generated employment to their members. This exclude the season labor who are engaged specially to undertake specific tasks like working in the mills, block industry e.t.c. cooperatives facilitate employment through members’ owned enterprises contributing substantially to the country gross domestic product (Wanyama,2008). Our evidence from the field suggests that the sector is actually employing more. Wikipedia (2006) and Levin (2002) emphases that cooperative societies employed more than 100 million men and women worldwide. With the ideas that employment were also created with the opportunities to upgrade skills through workshops and courses that are offer to members and the communities in which they dwell. Social protections which have been seen as the sole right of some wealthy fewer in the society are substantially guaranteed to avoid the vagaries of unexpected calamities that normally derail livelihood. Curriculum of institutions is now being structured to accommodate the studies of cooperative activities which after learning it becomes a carrier for them and the bases of being employed tomorrow, for instance cooperative colleges have been established to cater for the training and personnel development of these institutions with the multiplier effect on the economy of the nation (Lagos State Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperative, 2013). Psychological values of seen oneself as a partial owner of a business running on sound management principles, given corresponding benefits in form of dividend the members receive from the cooperative transactional activities always enhance the members’ morale of being part of the society in which they live Karlyle (2005).
