Oriental depositors gherau central bank

Though, the central bank does not look after the cooperatives that come under the jurisdiction of Cooperatives Department, some 300 depositors of troubled Oriental Cooperatives today picketed the central bank head quarters at Baluwater.

The depositors wanted to pressurise deputy governor Maha Prasad Adhikari who leads a committee, formed six months ago, to recommend solutions for troubled cooperatives, including Oriental.

Bypassing the Cooperatives Department – which has become a mute spectator of the massive embezzlement of public deposits by the cooperatives – that has the key responsibility to check, monitor and penalise the ‘unprofessional’ cooperatives, the government had formed the committee led by the deputy governor of the central bank, after it received a slew of complaints against Oriental, Guna, Ugrachandi, Corona and Exim Cooperatives.

Yesterday, the depositors had submitted a memorandum to Adhikari.

Some 7,000 depositors have not been able to withdraw their deposits worth Rs 4 billion from Oriental as one of the key promoters of Oriental cooperatives Sudhir Basnet’s real estate ventures – where he had put most of the money from cooperatives – failed.

The regulatory weakness of Cooperatives Department and highly politicisation of cooperatives that have been misused against its core principal, has led to the current crisis.

The depositors blame the government for not taking the issue ‘seriously’, whereas the government is still confused why so many cooperatives have been investing the public deposits on real estate, neither has it been able to crack whip on cooperatives that have been embezzeling public money.
Some of the leaders near to communist parties – CPN-UML and UCPN (Maoists) – have been actively engaged in the cooperatives distorting the basic cooperatives principal and embezzeling the public fund due to policy confusion and government’s regulatory weakness.

Oriental, Guna, Ugrachandi, Corona, Exim, and some other cooperatives have been mobilising billion of public deposits and investing on real estate but the government has completely failed to check them and safeguard the public’s hard earned money.