Abstract:
The issue of cooperative sustainability is a global reality. In Africa, the functioning of cooperatives has faced a number of problems: managerial incapacities, unclear incentives for starting cooperatives, poor governance, lack of capital resources, corruption and huge lack of management by officials, theft of cooperative resources, favoritism in recruiting and firing employees, as well as interestconflicts. In Rwanda, cooperatives have encountered a number of challenges,and a number of them have performed well and others have performedpoorly,whereas others have gone bankrupt.
The current study seeks to determine limitations hindering cooperatives performance inGasabo District. Specifically, the study aimed atdetermining the cooperative governance factors which hinder the performance of cooperatives in Gasabo District;assessing the cooperative managerial factors which hinder the performance of cooperatives in Gasabo District; and determining government intervention related factors which weaken the performance of cooperatives in Gasabo district. The research was mainly of descriptive research design and triangulation of data collection methods was used. Ninety- one (91) respondents, members of seven (7) cooperatives in Remera sector participated in the survey. In addition, five (5) key informants were interviewed. The findings showed that cooperative governance related factors which affect the performance of cooperative are: though the mission and vision of cooperatives are well stated, it was found that 58.3% of members have poor knowledge or do not know at all the vision and mission of their cooperatives. Cooperative members not associated in decision making as confirmed by 73.6%. Cooperative managerial related factors that affect the performance of cooperatives were poor financial management confirmed by 59.3% which results to high transaction costs. Poor human resource management as confirmed by 78%. 97.8% confirmed the lack of managerial system of signing performance contract. In addition, majority of 85.7% agreed that excessive government intervention in cooperative affects the autonomy of decision-making and the cooperative performance. The recommendations formulated are that government through RCA should strengthen monitoring of cooperatives, local government authorities should increase field-visits to cooperative, cooperative leadership and members must actively be engaged for the development of their cooperatives.
