Cooperative societies in the country are now better known for their well-orchestrated schemes of cheating the people. This has been confirmed by the recent disclosure that a large number of the societies are run with the primary motive of making money causing misery to millions. A Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) report shows that approximately Tk 90.70 billion was stolen by the management of 21 multipurpose cooperative societies in the past year alone. The money reportedly belonged to more than nine hundred thousand society members.
The TIB report titled, Cooperative society management: Challenges and solutions for good governance, mentioned gross irregularities including widely practised corrupt machinations that appear to be imbedded in the very essence of the cooperatives societies in the country. It need not be repeated that financial irregularities in the cooperatives have long been an issue for the ruinous impact on common citizens, particularly the rural poor who lured by the prospects of good returns eventually end up paupers. The disclosure in recent times of the schemes of few mega cooperatives that robbed the commoners of their money amounting to billions in taka points to the heinous criminality.
The report reflects the misdeeds of the so-called cooperatives between the March 2013 and March 2014. Based primarily on newspaper reports and follow-ups, the report presents the pathetic state in which the supposedly welfare societies operate only to add misery to the common people. The report mentions that as many as 47 per cent of the cooperative societies are virtually ineffective due mainly to internal strife, poor management, political interference and so on. Political interference is reportedly at work in forming few cooperative societies, as a means of grabbing state properties such as forestry, water bodies, khash lands etc.
It is no secret that the most glaring financial fraud that was committed by Destiny multipurpose cooperative society has caused havoc to millions of its members. Between 2005 (the year of its inception) and 20012, the gang running the house reportedly collected more than Tk 20.58 billion from its eight hundred thousand plus members. The Destiny case no doubt represents the crooked hand of embezzlement that grew not just by the 'ingenuity' it employed in cheating its members (the tree plantation programme being one), but it was also the wilful indulgence of the authorities entrusted to oversee and monitor such activities that allowed its schemes to flourish. This is the case with most of the cooperatives that have come up over time with the purpose of gratifying the greed of the managing bodies. The TIB report has reflected at length on this while examining corruption in cooperative societies from two angles - corruption of officials of the cooperatives department and that of members of different cooperative societies. The report has found that 47 per cent of the cooperative societies are ineffective. Clients of these institutions are being cheated by members of the managing committees who take additional money as interest, violating the policy of taking a maximum of 18 per cent.
Newspaper reports suggest that the number of small cooperative societies in various shapes and forms is innumerable. Bulk of these societies operates at district and upazila levels where they find it convenient to draw people's attention, capitalising mostly on the basic human instinct of profiteering. A good deal of the malpractices is due to the incompetence of the overseeing agencies which, many believe, serve to allow these societies to grow. For, besides parting with the required vigilance, the government bodies involved in various stages such as registration, auditing and inspection of the societies have ample scope to provide them with escape route. Thus, it is the opportunity offered by the absence of regulatory mechanism that allows these societies to thrive, on the one hand, and the society members, content with the imaginary prospects of profit, prefer to keep their dealings away from the public eye at the initial stage, on the other. And when they actually do, it is usually too late.
The dismal narrative of cooperative societies, as disclosed by the TIB report, reflects the crumbling of the objectives of an admirable model of public collaboration meant for collective socio-economic welfare. It is, most observers will agree, not the fault of the people who, enticed by the prospect of quick bucks, join hands with the culprits only to be deluded at the end of the day. The opportunities that the so-called cooperative societies exploit in materialising their greed are presented to them by none other than the agencies responsible to control, regulate and monitor their activities.
wasiahmed.bd @hotmail.com
