Oriental depositors to launch street protest

KATHMANDU, JAN 18 -

Dissatisfied with the “sluggish pace of work” of the high-level commission formed to investigate troubled cooperatives , depositors of Oriental Cooperatives on Friday said they will launch a street protest from Wednesday.

The depositors, also dissatisfied with the temporary nature of commission, said the victims were incorporated in the body. The panel, which is not authorized to take action but only investigate irregularities, will submit its report within three months. The budget for the current fiscal year has provisioned formation a sub-committee including the victims of troubled cooperatives .

“The depositors’ meeting on Friday decided to organise a rally on Wednesday against slow work of the commission to recover depositors’ money,” said Lokeshwor Ranjit, coordinator of a struggle committee of the victims of Oriental.

Amid pressure from the depositors, the government formed a three member high-level commission led by former Special Court Chairman Gauri Bahadur Karki a month ago to assess the financial situation of troubled cooperatives . So far, the commission has received 13,000 complaints against 63 savings and credit and multipurpose cooperatives from across the country. More than half of the complaints are against Oriental. The commission said over 8,000 complaints have been registered against Oriental. The cooperative has to pay around Rs 3.60 billion to its depositors.

Other cooperatives against which complaints are registered are Guna, Pacific, Corona, Subha Shree, Nawa Rajdhani, Sahayata and Standard, among others.

Members of the commission said they would form a taskforce with the involvement of the victims if they feel it is necessary. The commission has the mandate to do so. Aamod Adhikari, advisor of the struggle committee, said they were not fully convinced that the commission has the ability to recover their deposits from Oriental.

However, Sushil Ram Mathema, a member of the commission, said they were committed to recover depositors’ money from troubled cooperatives . “We have already made Guna pay back Rs 70 million to its depositors,” he said. “We are also cross checking whether the depositors really got back their money.”

He said the commission has also been encouraging Oriental’s chief Sudhir Basnet to pay back deposits. “He has committed to pay back deposits by selling his housing and apartment units,” said Mathema. Basnet’s housing and apartment projects include Vegas City, Kohinoor and Imperial, among others, which are under construction.

The depositors, however, said the commission was echoing Basnet’s statement and that they doubt whether their will get their back.

(Source: The Kathmandu Post)