Ministry of Social Affairs must activate its role of pertaining to the cooperative societies sector, especially the Control and Inspection Department and review the regulations to avoid legislative deficiencies says the Audit Bureau.
A local Arabic daily has learned from informed sources that the Audit Bureau has formally inquired from the ministry the reason for the increase in the number of cases filed against cooperative societies or by the cooperatives, explaining that 1925 cases are currently being looked into by the judiciary which reflects the weakness of the Ministry’s internal control system and its failure to follow up on legislative deficiencies in the regulations on cooperative work, in addition to the non-compliance of those regulations by the cooperatives.
The sources revealed that during the audit of the work of the Social Affairs Ministry the Audit Bureau discovered 2,189 cases were filed by the Ministry against the cooperatives and the Federation of Cooperative Societies, in addition to cases filed against the Ministry.
The percentage of unfinished cases that are still in circulation reached about 75, “a very high percentage, especially with the possibility of final court rulings being issued against the ministry and the coops, which would herald a waste of shareholders’ money, damage to the financial positions of the coops.
The sources stated that the cases that are still pending before the courts are distributed among the coops of the country’s governorates as follows — 291 in the Capital, 512 in Hawalli, and 284 in Farwaniya, as well as 94 cases in Mubarak Al-Kabeer, 254 in Jahra, and 210 in Ahmadi, “while there are 213 rejected case against the Ministry, and 49 against the Federation of Societies.
The most prominent of these cases are related to the appeal against the Ministry’s decisions, the dissolution of boards of directors, in addition to the financial dues to the workers such as salaries, end of service, and others.
The sources confirmed that the Audit Bureau attributed the large number and diversity of these issues to the weak role of the Ministry oversight over the operational activity of the coops, stressing the ministry must activate its role, especially in the Department of Cooperative Control and Inspection.
The sources added that “the number of cases against which final rulings were issued in favor of or against the ministry are divided into final rulings invalidating the allegations of those who filed the complaint, or rulings acquitting the association, as the total of those cases amounted to 667.”
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