Dear Editor,
Credit Unions throughout Guyana are governed and administered in accordance with the Laws of Guyana under the Cooperative Societies Act, Chapter 88:01 and Regulations and Rules of the Credit Union that are developed by its members and approved by the subject Minister through the CCDO.
The operations of the Guyana Public Service Cooperative Credit Union (GPSCCU) are financed and administered by its members via monthly deductions from their salary, direct payments and interest earned from loans to its members. More importantly, these deductions from the member’s salary are not tax exempt. The Credit Union is not being funded in any way by Government subsidies or contribution.
The affairs of the Credit Union are managed by its members via a Management Committee which is elected at the Annual General Meeting and the Staff of the Credit Union who are recruited by the Management Committee to administer and manage its day-to-day activities. The salaries and benefits to these staff are paid by the Credit Union funds and not by Government Subvention.
It has been a year now since the Chief Co-Operatives Development Officer (CCDO) installed an IMC at the GPSCCU by invoking Subsection {2), of Section 56, of the Cooperative Societies Regulations that is provided for under the Cooperative Societies Act, Chapter 88:01 and failed to follow a more civil way which is provided for under the Laws, Section 37 and other sections including the Regulations and Rule Book.
For those who do not have access to the regulations, the section refers to reads as follows: “If in the opinion of the Commissioner the committee of any registered society is or becomes incapable of managing or willfully neglects to conduct the affairs of such society in a proper manner the Commissioner may assume control of the affairs of the society and may appoint a person or persons to manage the affairs of the society for such time as the Commissioner thinks fit: Provided that the Commissioner may, at any time, if he thinks fit, cause a committee to be elected in accordance with the rules of the society and shall forthwith hand over the management of the society to the committee so elected”.
In this case, the Commissioner referred to above is the CCDO.
The full reason (s) for the invoking Section 56 (2) was not revealed. What is going around as the reasons are:
1. That the Management Committee refused to pay over the Audit and the Inspection Fees for a number of years when requested by the CCDO to the government sometime between 2017 and early 2018.
2. That there was no AGM for the Credit Union and the Audit of the Credit Union’s books has not been done for a number of years.
Further inquiries revealed that not only the GPSCCU was not audited for a number of years or didn’t have an AGM but many other Credit Unions whose status is the same so why choose the GPSCCU?
3. That the elected Management Committee is mismanaging the Credit Union Funds.
These allegations were orchestrated by one of the Committee Members who has some issues with the Chairperson and other members when he cannot get his own way.
The law makes provision under Section 37, Inquiry and Inspection to address any concerns members have with regard to the functioning of the Management of the Credit Union. This I understand was not followed along with other sections of the law on how to handle any dispute.
As a Senior Public Servant and a longstanding member of the GPSCCU, I am battling to comprehend what is really going on with the GPSCCU, the Government via the CCDO and the Minister, the IMC and the Judicial System.
Enquiries with legal minds regarding the Laws, Regulations and Rules that govern Credit Unions and the GPSCCU Rule Book revealed that the CCDO could have handled the matter differently which is outlined below, instead of adopting a high handed approach to address the issue. The following is what should have been done:
1. Call an Emergency Meeting with the Members of the Credit Union and outline her position with empirical evidence.
2. Ask members of the GPSCCU to elect persons from and within the Membership to be part of the Interim Management Committee which overlooks the daily affairs of the GPSCCU in keeping with its current budgeted expenditure and more so act as a caretaker Committee until all outstanding matters which are of concern to the CCDO are addressed and rectified in keeping with the Credit Union Laws, Regulations and Rules.
As far as I can recollect, the Court granted an order to the CCDO to evict the
Management Committee that was duly elected and appointed by the Members of the GPSCCU at an AGM. The elected Management Committee was evicted by use of the Guyana Police Force after they refused to hand-over the GPSCCU to the CCDO IMC which she and the Minister with the responsibility for Cooperatives Mr. Keith Scott elected.
Note, most of the members of the IMC at that point were not members of the GPSCCU. They later signed up to be members although some of them may not be eligible for membership.
After a few days of the installment of the IMC, the elected Management Committee challenged the installment of the IMC and a High Court Judge ruled in their favour and the duly elected Management Committee and they took back control of the GPSCCU.
Albeit not for long, just a few days later, the CCDO took back the matter to the High Court and another High Court Judge ruled in the CCDO’s favour and the elected Management Committee was ousted again, this time for good since nothing has been done so far in their favour after several attempts to have this matter resolved at the High Court.
Right now after reading this letter so far, you may want to know why and how I decided to speak out on this matter now. Well for the benefits of my fellow Public Servants and more so, the members of the GPSCCU, I was motivated to pen this letter after I eavesdropped on a conversation on the misconduct and mismanagement that is taking place at the GPSCCU by the IMC.
Further enquiries also revealed the following:
1. That several contracts were awarded to friends of the IMC for a large sum of cash without following any procurement procedures.
2. That several new positions were done after a re-structuring was ordered by the IMC Chairman which saw an increase in the employment cost of 100% which moves from 3 million to 6 million per month.
3. The bank balances have significantly depleted.
I am very concerned about this entire fiasco and will ask the CCDO to provide publicly, an explanation on the following questions:
1. Why she acted so high handedly with this matter although she is and forms part of the Public Service?
2. Why an AGM has not been held so far since me, she, the IMC and the general members are fully aware that all the outstanding audited financial statements for the years up to 2017 have been completed since January, 2019?
3. Why did she grant an extension to the IMC instead of calling an AGM?
Yours faithfully,
Jennifer Melville Nelson
