Wrongdoings galore at Pokhara co-ops

POKHARA, Dec 31: People working for cooperatives have now started blowing whistle against wrongdoings and sheer negligence of their colleagues, in a sign that the movement has started veering away from its intended goal of serving the interest of core members.



They have also demanded strong action against these miscreants, who have tarnished the image of the cooperative sector by openly flouting general rules based on which these groups work.[break]



Narayan Bhattarai, chairman of Fewa Savings and Credit, said he has come across a person who has held positions in seven different cooperatives, which violates norms set for cooperatives. “Yet Kaski District Division Cooperative Office and District Cooperative Association have remained mute despite knowing these misdeeds,” he told an interaction organized by Sanchaya Multipurpose Cooperative in Pokhara.



Navaraj Baral, chairman of Jay Kalyan Dairy Cooperative, echoed Bhattarai. “There are examples of the same person holding the position of chairman in one cooperative, secretary in the other and promoter in the third one,” Baral said. “This practice has put many cooperatives at risk of failing as these overburdened individuals will not be able to invest much time in all these institutions.”



Hem Raj Baral, another person involved in cooperative movement, said cases of financial misappropriation was also on the rise in the sector. “There are instances of cooperatives employing two staff showing expenses of 17 employees. They also create fake travel invoices to extract money from their own institutions,” he said.



Others, who participated in the interaction, laid bare practices of using the name of agriculture cooperatives to conduct business of savings and credit cooperatives to evade taxes, and expanding activities to places beyond one´s working area.



Despite exposure of these malpractices Narayan Aryal, chief of Kaski District Division Cooperative Office, asked cooperatives to strengthen internal control mechanism and launch reform measures on their own.



“These cases of wrongdoings must be reported at the office so that we can initiate action against such institutions,” he said, urging cooperatives not to get involved in haphazard lending practices that could later bring them down.

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