OT­TO CAR­RING­TON

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

Ten­sions flared out­side the Works Cred­it Union of­fice in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day as scores of frus­trat­ed mem­bers stood in protest, de­mand­ing trans­paren­cy and an ur­gent Spe­cial Gen­er­al Meet­ing (SGM) to ad­dress what they de­scribe as “se­ri­ous gov­er­nance breach­es”.

Speak­ing on their be­half, for­mer pres­i­dent Au­gus­tus Thomas, a long-serv­ing mem­ber of the cred­it union since 1997, al­leged the cur­rent board may have over­stayed its term, ig­nored mem­ber pe­ti­tions, and spent funds with­out an ap­proved bud­get.

“Their term ex­pired since May, and up to now they are still run­ning the cred­it union with­out a bud­get,” Thomas told Guardian Me­dia dur­ing the protest. “We are in No­vem­ber, and they con­tin­ue to spend mem­bers’ mon­ey with­out ap­proval. That is un­con­sti­tu­tion­al and un­ac­cept­able.”

Thomas said the su­per­vi­so­ry com­mit­tee signed off on the union’s fi­nan­cial ac­counts in June, which, ac­cord­ing to the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s by­laws, should have trig­gered an An­nu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing with­in one month. In­stead, he claimed, the board did not act on the SGM re­quest, and a mem­ber-dri­ven ef­fort to call the meet­ing was re­port­ed­ly blocked.

Thomas said the su­per­vi­so­ry com­mit­tee signed off on the union’s fi­nan­cial ac­counts in June, which, ac­cord­ing to the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s by­laws, should have trig­gered an An­nu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing with­in one month. In­stead, he claimed, the board did not act on the SGM re­quest, and a mem­ber-dri­ven ef­fort to call the meet­ing was re­port­ed­ly blocked.

“We col­lect­ed 192 sig­na­tures re­quest­ing the SGM. The meet­ing was ad­ver­tised, then sud­den­ly pulled from the news­pa­per and the in­ter­net,” he said. “When we went to court, the mat­ter was pushed to the Com­mis­sion­er of Co-op­er­a­tive De­vel­op­ment, and still, noth­ing hap­pened.”

Thomas said both the Min­istry of Fi­nance and the Co-op­er­a­tive Com­mis­sion­er were made aware of the sit­u­a­tion but ex­pressed con­cern that there had been de­lays in en­sur­ing com­pli­ance with the Co-op­er­a­tive So­ci­eties Act.

“The com­mis­sion­er’s si­lence is un­ac­cept­able,” he de­clared. “This is how the Hin­du Cred­it Union and First Na­tion­al Cred­it Union fell apart. If this con­tin­ues, Works Cred­it Union could be next.”

As mem­bers stood out­side hold­ing plac­ards and voic­ing their anger, Thomas said the group’s next move would be to re­claim con­trol of the cred­it union if the SGM is not called.

“This or­gan­i­sa­tion be­longs to us, the mem­bers. If they refuse to call the meet­ing, 192 of us will walk in­side and take our seats. We are not go­ing to court again,” he said, as mem­bers nod­ded in agree­ment. “We will take back our cred­it union.”

Thomas al­so al­leged that some board mem­bers may be re­main­ing in of­fice for per­son­al ben­e­fit. He added that, in his view, cer­tain prac­tices ap­peared to be in­con­sis­tent with the by­laws.

“My life sav­ings and my chil­dren’s lega­cy are here,” Thomas said. “We will not let Works Cred­it Union be­come an­oth­er Hin­du Cred­it Union.”

Guardian Me­dia reached out to the pres­i­dent of the cred­it union, Dawn De Souza, who opt­ed not to com­ment on the claims made by the mem­bers. Ef­forts to con­tact the Com­mis­sion­er for Co-op­er­a­tive De­vel­op­ment on the mat­ter were un­suc­cess­ful.