By HELEN ZULU –
THE Patents and Companies Registration Agency (PACRA) has registered over 2,000 cooperatives since the launch of the new automated system in May this year.
PACRA public relations officer Vaida Njobvu said a total of 2,011 co-operatives have been registered across the country.
Ms Njobvu said to streamline the registration process of cooperatives, the Government relocated the function of the registrar of cooperatives from the Ministry of Agriculture to PACRA.
She said in an interview that the agency envisages rolling out this automation system to the rest of the provinces in 2018.
“Previously it took about 30 days for a cooperative to be registered but after the automation of the process, it only takes 48 hours to register a co-operative at PACRA Headquarters.
“To this end, a total of 43, 607co-operatives have been migrated into this newly automated system,” Ms Njobvu said.
She said PACRA had put in-place cost effective interventions to ensure that clients complied with filing of annual returns.
Ms Njobvu said these included messages and email reminders which had so far  proved to be a success as there has been an increase in compliance levels.
“As PACRA we have not earmarked any businesses for de-registration, rather than frustrate businesses, the agency is urging all entities that are not compliant to file their Annual Returns.
“This is in an effort to promote entrepreneurship and contribute to industrialisation and job creation,” she said.
The Government in January this year commenced the streamlining of cooperatives registration to ensure the country had the correct number of cooperatives that were operating effectively and reduce the cost of doing business.
And a total of 43, 607 co-operatives have been migrated into the newly automated system at PACRA.