CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1     Background of the Study

Working capital management in cooperative business is concerned with the management of the enterprise current account which encompasses current asset and current liabilities. The management of Working Capital in Cooperatives is one of the most special aspects of industrial overall financial management. If the cooperative enterprise cannot maintain a satisfactory level of working capital, it is likely to become bankrupt. The current asset of the cooperative enterprise should be large enough to cover its current liabilities in order to maintain a  reasonable margin of financial safety. Working capital management in Cooperative deals with actual management of current asset and current liabilities in the enterprise.

Working Capital can be defined as the excess of current asset over current liabilities. Onuoha(2009). Basically, there are four conventional class of current asset which are cash, inventories, marketable securities and account recurable while current liability entail account payable, accruals and taxes working capital is used to finance production to invert in stock and to provide credit to customers. A deeper understanding of the importance of working capital by a cooperative society and it’s satisfactory management can lead not only to efficiency of capital management but also assist in fulfilling the  ultimate  aim of the cooperative business such as increasing surpluses, maximizing cost and return on cooperative investment.

Consequently, the extent to which working capital management affect cooperative efficiency is the thrust of this study.