Tuesday June 24, 2014
by BEH YUEN HUI
KUALA LUMPUR: Koperasi Jayadiri Malaysia (Kojadi) — one of MCA’s two co-operatives — will offer two new loans for youths in line with the party’s transformation plan to help the middle and low-income groups.
Co-operatives, said MCA president Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai, should be proactive in helping young people, especially those who moved to the cities from rural areas in search of career and educational opportunities.
These institutions, he said, could play an important role in opening the road to success for youths by offering them business or study loans.
The loans are the Small and Medium Enterprises Loan Scheme and Kojadi Education Loan Scheme for Minors.
“This is in line with MCA’s transformation plan to help the middle and low-income groups move in tandem with the country in achieving the high-income nation goal,” said Liow.
The party, he said, was also concerned about the future of school dropouts, adding that it would organise more vocational training programmes and strengthen the current programmes via its Tunku Abdul Rahman University College.
Although the number of co-operatives in the country was increasing yearly, he said the Chinese were still reluctant to participate in such programmes.
“I hope that the community will change their perception on the co-operative structure,” he said after opening the 32nd Kojadi AGM at Wisma MCA here yesterday.
As of last year, there were some 11,000 co-operatives in the country with nearly eight million members, he said.
Liow said under MCA’s new administrative framework announced recently, the party would focus on tackling the challenges brought by rapid economic change and urbanisation.
“These include generating more job opportunities, scaling down the bloated civil service system, reducing racial gaps as well as combating crime and corruption,” he said.
On Saturday, Liow had said that MCA would come out with the framework to encourage the Chi-nese community to venture further into the economic sector.
Kojadi, which was set up by MCA in 1981 to provide educational loans to students pursuing higher education, is the only Chinese co-operative with a five-star rating from Malaysia Co-operative Societies Commission.
Earlier, Kojadi chairman Datuk Ng Peng Hay said that its assets had increased from RM151mil in 2012 to RM156mil last year and announced a 4.5% tax-free dividend for all qualified members.
Liow later attended the annual general meetings for the party’s Subang, Kajang, Sepang and Petaling Jaya Utara divisions.
In his speeches, he encouraged the delegates to be “agents of change” in facilitating a smooth transformation process of the party and urged grassroots leaders to help locate inactive members in its re-registration project.