The Kuwait Union of Consumer Cooperative Societies has voiced objections to the government’s plans to privatise the country’s cooperative retail societies.
President of the organisation, Abdul Wahab Al-Fares, and other co-operative leaders have collectively rejected the recommendations of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry regarding the privatisation of co-operative societies, Arab Times reported.
“We will not accept the privatisation of co-operative societies under any circumstances. These are shareholders’ rights,” Al-Fares told the publication.
The speculations around the privatisation of retail co-ops follow the plan to tackle inflation and the rising prices of food staples, revealed by the Minister of Commerce and Industry and the Minister of State for Youth Affairs, Muhammad Al-Aiban, on September 5.
The plan is made up of ten urgent recommendations which include “adopting models for the privatisation of co-operative societies to reduce administrative costs and bolster the role of the private sector in the economy, under the jurisdiction of the General Investment”, according to Kuwait Times.
Another recommendation concerns reevaluating Kuwaiti co-operatives law to “enhance oversight of the board of directors’ practices in co-operative societies and strengthen governance, overseen by the Ministry of Labor Affairs and the Federation of Associations”.
Last month, the Union signed a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Commerce and Industry to oversee the pricing of goods and services within cooperative societies and parallel markets.
As part of this deal, the Union will grant the Ministry of Commerce access to its price database. The data will cover details such as the product’s name, brand, size and weight, country of origin, price and barcode.
Recently, the organisation has launched a price disclosure platform featuring prices for more than 139,000 types of commodities to tackle “artificially inflated prices across co-operative societies, maintaining price balance and facilitating transparency in pricing across co-operatives”.
The Union conducted market inspections to ensure adherence to price guidelines, it said in a statement.
Kuwait has more than 60 consumer co-operatives, which constitute 60 per cent of the grocery landscape.
