The National Movement for the Protection of Cooperatives yesterday (4) submitted a petition seeking the rescinding of the ongoing legal reforms targeting the Co-operative Societies Law No.5 of 1972.

The movement’s President Upali Chandrasiri said that, as opposed to current regulations that vested power in the public or the memberships of cooperative societies, the proposed amendments had been designed to vest most power in officials of cooperative societies.

He told The Daily Morning that the token petition, which contained around 5,000 signatures of cooperative society unions’ and groups’ leaders, had been handed over to the Ministry of Trade, Commerce, Food Security, and Cooperative Development, and that the movement would continue to collect signatures with the goal of reaching one million from members of all tiers.

“We pointed out that you cannot draft an act better than the existing one, since this act allows the public to exercise its sovereignty. Cooperative society officials appointed by members can be removed by members within 24 hours. At the same time, members can control, manage, and replace the officials that they have appointed,” Chandrasiri said. 

He added that these powers had been made available through the act enacted in 1972 and other related documents drafted in 1973, and that the present reform activities aimed to abolish these powers.

Earlier, Chandrasiri added that the proposed reforms, if enacted, would abolish cooperative financial loan-issuing societies that currently provided services to around 8.5 million people who lacked the ability to provide guarantees required to obtain loans from commercial banks.