Badrul Ahsan :
The Department of Co-operatives (DoC) authorities have started probe into allegations that some multi-purpose cooperative societies (MCS) are allegedly engaged in ‘unlawful’ credit operations through gold mortgage, officials said.
The authorities started the investigations recently following hundreds of complaints against dozens of MCS, lodged by aggrieved clients with different police stations and cooperative offices across the country.
According to the existing laws, there is no provision of the co-operatives extending credit after taking gold as mortgage, but the MCS have been doing such business for long in total disregard for the laws, a DoC official said.
He alleged that these cooperatives received the precious metal worth billions of taka, enticing mostly housewives and small traders and failed to return those to their borrowers after repayment of the entire amount of loans as most of the deposited gold were either sold out or invested elsewhere on higher interest.
“The DoC did not give permission to any of these co-operatives for doing such business. Telling lies, they convinced their clients that such deposits were permitted by us,” DoC additional registrar Amiya Kumar Chattopadhaya told the New Nation on Monday.
He said the department in the mean time has stopped operation of a number of such MCS and departmental inquiries are going on to find out their irregularities and liabilities to their clients.
“After probing the irregularities, DoC will file cases against these MCS or refer the issue to the Anti-corruption Commission (ACC),” added the DoC additional registrar.
Following the move of DoC, many MCS office-bearers went into hiding, leaving hundreds of their clients in uncertainty, some aggrieved customers said. They also claimed, if the MCS return the ornaments, they often change quality and weight of the ornaments.
“I took Tk 300,000 as loan from Narayanganj credit cooperative society mortgaging 15 bhoris of gold. I cleared the entire amount of loan along with interest accordingly in December last, but I am yet to get back my valuables from the MCS,” Sajeda Akter, an aggrieved customer told this reporter.
Abul Kalam, another client of Peoples Multipurpose Co-operative Society said he took loans amounting to Tk 200,000 and repaid the sum within a year but the cooperative authorities were dilly-dallying in returning the ornaments.
“I mortgaged my sister’s gold ornaments to the cooperative as I was badly in need of money then. After I repaid the amount, the cooperative official dilly-dallied with me for seven months and now they have gone into hiding,” he added. “I’m now at a loss as to what to say to my sister and her husband,” he added expressing his helplessness.
