KARACHI: Sindh Minister for Cooperation Jam Ikramullah Khan Dharejo on Friday said forwarded more than 15 cases of Cooperative Societies to the Sindh Anti-Corruption department, as these societies were allegedly involved in gross irregularities and misappropriation.
Addressing a press conference regarding the progress of the Cooperation Department, he said many steps have been taken for the betterment of the people across the Sindh.
He added that we are trying to complete the construction of Hyderabad Cooperative College so that the officers and the managing committee of the cooperative societies could get training.
We have made extraordinary efforts to return the societies back to elected managing committees, he said.
Prior to this, there was a practice of superseding the societies and appointing private persons as administrators which created a host of problems within the societies.
There were more than 50 administrators only in Karachi, and most of them have been removed and the societies handed over to the managing committees through the election process, he said. Only 10 to 12 administrators are working and very soon the election will be held in these societies, he maintained.
He said we have also started awareness campaign through media for the general public to expose fake managements so that innocent people may not be cheated.
The minister said we are also trying to streamline the working of all cooperative societies through an annual audit. In this regard, we have started the process of forensic audit, and during the course of this audit all the discrepancies committed by the societies will be brought to the limelight and action will be taken against the culprits accordingly, he continued saying.
In order to start the forensic audit, we had invited all cooperative societies of Sindh in the Auditorium of Pakistan Museum at Karachi and the discussion with these societies went for six days, he explained.
The minister said his department is facing some 300 court cases. In order to reduce the number of these cases, we have submitted a number of urgent applications to dispose of these cases and to conduct elections and complete inquiries in the larger interest of the department and members of the societies.
