Group calls for fairness in Christian cooperatives in Bangladesh
DHAKA– A forum of Christian cooperatives in Bangladesh wants to establish systems to resolve leadership disputes, curb corruption, tackle bad loans, and de-risk financial transactions, according to ACA News.
Members of the Central Association of Christian Cooperatives Limited [CACCO] discussed the “burring issues” in their 11th annual meeting held recently, said their president Nirmol Rozario.
The representatives of the member cooperatives from across the country also discussed ways to overcome default loans and increase returns on their investment, he said.
“We now have a significant number of defaulting members and we are communicating with them to show them the way to repay the loan. To ensure that no one defaults in the future, we have introduced a monitoring system so that the co-operatives become more serious when they distribute loans,” Rozario, a Catholic, told UCA News.
“We have many Christian cooperatives that have idle money and are unable to invest properly. So, we to are advising them to invest judiciously. We are also advising those cooperatives with small capitals how they can accumulate funds and get in right track for development,” he said.
Rozario pointed out that the CACCO has also been working with cooperatives that are tangled in disputes over leadership for peaceful election and smooth transfer of executive powers.
He added that the CACCO has already set up a database to monitor members who defaulted loans in one cooperative so they cannot take loans from other cooperatives.
Holy Cross Father Liton H. Gomes, secretary of the Catholic bishops’ Justice and Peace Commission, attended the CACCO meeting as a delegate for the bishops’ conference.
Father Gomes said the church has support for the activities of the organisation to ensure fair deal for the members and to enable cooperatives to function properly.
“Once the church discouraged clergy from getting involved in financial institutions, saying it was not the right place for them. Things have changed now, because a cooperative today is not just a financial institution, but it has the capacity to do a lot of good work in collaboration with the church like education, health program etc. Since the co-operatives are associated with the church, we are now trying to have Christian values and spirituality there as well,” Father Gomes, chaplain of the CACCO, said.
Umbrella organisations like CACCO are important for guidance for cooperatives and monitoring for the welfare of general members, says Milton Baroi, a member of Dhaka-based Christian Multipurpose Cooperative.
“We need a monitoring system for our co-operatives, we need guardians for leadership development and CACCO conducts the audits to prevent corruption. But it needs to be more active because it requires a lot of monitoring to make sure money is properly utilized,” Baroi told UCA News.
The CACCO was established on May 1, 2007, to build a self-reliant Christian society through a strong cooperative movement.
Currently, it has 42 member associations and one associate association in areas covered by Dhaka Archdiocese, and it is in the process of expanding activities in the dioceses of Mymensingh, Sylhet and Rajshahi. The present asset of the company is an estimated 220 million Taka [US$ 2.53 million].
In the 1950s, Christian missionaries pioneered cooperatives to assist the poor and save them from local loan sharks. The movement became popular and spread across Bangladesh.
The state-run Cooperatives Department says, there are about 1.77 million registered cooperatives in the country, with more than 10 million members.
Of the 900 cooperative credit unions in Bangladesh, 250 are based in the Christian community, according to the CACCO.
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