Victim savers of Sahara Chitwan and Sunrise Savings and Credit Cooperatives gathered on Saturday. They expressed anger that the government was not serious about the problem of cooperative fraud.
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Tikaram Kandel, who is 60 years old, drives a cart from his home in Shitalchowk, Bharatpur Metropolitan City-9. The wages he earns after delivering goods like cement sacks and rods from the shop to the customer help him and his wife meet their expenses. On Saturday, he was in a bit of a hurry. He was getting work carrying loose goods, but when his friends called him, he left work and grabbed his old bicycle and ran.
He had saved money in the cooperative by saving from the wages he earned by driving a cart. The Sahara Chitwan Multipurpose Cooperative, where he had been saving, has been closed for about three years. He is worried that his hard-earned income has been lost along with his daily expenses by driving a cart.
Savers of Sahara Chitwan and Sunrise Savings and Loan Cooperatives had gathered on Saturday to make a plan to return the savings. That is why Kandel also rushed to the discussion. ‘I had saved 100/200 rupees a day and 100/1200 rupees on days when I had good earnings,’ Kandel said.
One day, he went to the office of Sahara Chitwan Cooperative in Bharatpur Oralo to withdraw his savings. When the security guard there asked him to come the next day, he returned empty-handed. After that, he went again and again. One day, after the guard also left his job, Kandel stopped going to the cooperative office. ‘I was in dire need of Rs 20-25 thousand. I think there was only that much savings in the account. Can someone who earns and eats every day save a lot? Whatever was there was sweat-soaked earnings,’ he said, ‘I think it is gone now.’ Rs 590 million in savings of 6,200 savers has been embezzled in Sahara.
Ravi Lamichhane, the central president of the Rashtriya Swatantra Party (RSWP) and former home minister and a member of the House of Representatives from Chitwan-2 in 2079, is also an accused in the Sahara Chitwan savings embezzlement case. Sahara’s founding chairman Geetendra Babu (GB) Rai is the main accused, but he is absconding.
A ‘Red Corner Notice’ has also been issued against the main accused GB Rai. ‘It has been three years since the campaign to return the savings.’ Neither the money was found nor the main accused was caught. We had appealed to every Prime Minister, Home Minister and many ministers and leaders before, but GB Rai, who was absconding, was not caught,' said Shalikram Duwadi, coordinator of the struggle committee formed by the victim savers of Sahara Chitwan. 'It seemed as if GB Rai, who had not been heard even after telling the three previous Prime Ministers and four Home Ministers, would be caught now.' He said that many lower-class savers like Kandel have been victims of cooperative fraud. He complained that he was disappointed when he did not hear the government formed after the Gen-G movement on Bhadra 24 from speaking in the interest of cooperative victims. 'We have not heard this government speak about cooperative victims.' While the current Prime Minister and ministers are aware of our problems,' Duwadi said. He said that local borrowers who took loans from cooperatives are ready to pay the money. 'The borrowers in the market here have said that we will pay.' But who will understand that loan? There are no directors of the cooperative. There is no office. We did not understand,' he said.
Another victim saver, Neelkanth Tiwari, said that they had asked the government to return their own savings. 'The government had to bring an ordinance, seize their property and return our savings. If they will not even return a fugitive like GB Rai, we should also ask why the Gen-G government was afraid to arrest GB Rai?' Tiwari said.
He said that when people from previous parties were the Prime Minister and ministers, when the savings were not returned and the accused could not be caught, he felt like they were in league with the cooperative fraudsters. 'If they do not work for us now, we will also say who is running this government,' Tiwari asked. Kamaladevi Kandel, a saver from Sahara Chitwan, said that her husband had sent her money from abroad. 'She went abroad because she could not find work in the country. The cooperative ate the foreign earnings,' Kamala said.
Tulsi Sapkota, a victim saver from Sunrise Savings and Credit Cooperative, said that they were made victims under political patronage. Sunrise has embezzled Rs 900 million from savers in Chitwan. Geeta Basnet of Bardiya, a proportional member of parliament from the RPP in the dissolved House of Representatives, is the accused in this cooperative case. Basnet's son-in-law Nagendra Bahadur Rimal of Bardiya is the president of this cooperative. 'Those who were arrested in this cooperative case and are in jail are now saying that you will not get anything and we will go free. The victims are the same, the morale of the perpetrators has increased,' Sapkota said.
In Chitwan, the district court where the files of cooperative fraud cases like Sahara, Sunrise and Shivshikhar are being processed was set on fire by protesters on Bhadra 24. ‘The perpetrators targeted the court on the pretext of Gen-G and destroyed the files. But we also had the evidence and documents. Setting fire would not have solved everything. We are not going to give up even now. We will fight,’ said Duwadi. He said that the government, which has taken the responsibility of holding elections on Falgun 21, should also think about the 7.4 million cooperative victims across the country.
