By Mohamed Kamara
The Register of the Cooperative Department has revealed that Board Members of more than 35 credit unions in Sierra Leone have over the past years been borrowing hundreds of millions of Leones from their unions thereby depriving depositors from benefiting from substantial credits which will enable them to invest in commodities or other business orientated initiatives.
Mr. Newton Malen made this exposure on Thursday October 16th 2019 at the YWCA Hall at Brookfields in commemoration of the World Credit Union Day organized under the sponsorship of the Irish Credit Union Foundation. He told delegates that credit Unions World ever play a vital role to address the problems of poverty and unemployment by creating better opportunities and incentives that will boost individuals or corporate investment in other sectors notably agriculture.
The Registrar said when a trader at Dove Cut counts on exorbitant gains from credits incurred, his next moves is to improve his business concern and invest in the field of agriculture, fishing and transportation, having education and health which are the nations paramount needs he said all this is discourage by one Board member been borrowed between 30-40 million Leones most of them he said are not even business orientated like the ordinary depositor but find themselves into these Boards only to rip the toils of the messes.
In another development, the registrar told this reporter that as a supervisory body, he will soon put modalities in place where in all credit unions will be accountable to the umbrellas body to present an annual report including the disposition of its funding. He revealed that the ministry of finance has approved a Le 1.6 billion Leones for the department in the 2020 budget. He concluded that although the cost of his strategic plans to be implemented supersede the amount in the budget allocation, he will ensure that the money be judiciously used for its purpose.