Karachi: Minister admits cooperative societies corruption, but blames societies too

[Naveed Yaseen]

Admitting corruption in his department, provincial Cooperative Minister Jalil Memon said that he has taken action against errant officials in most of the corruption cases and investigations were underway in some other cases.

Talking to this correspondent at his office, the minister said that corruption was rampant in almost every cooperative society and officials concerned have exploited this situation.

The Pakistan People’s Party minister, who was elected from Thatta, said that there exist more than 600 cooperative societies in Karachi and majority of them were not following the rules and regulations.

Jalil Memon admitted that he had ordered investigation into some of the cases but in most of the cases the authorities concerned did not inform him. He also clarified that he did not have the authority to appoint administrators to replace the elected bodies of the societies.

He said that the secretary and the director general were responsible for appointing administrators. Memon said that there were complaints that the valuable lands of some of the societies had been occupied by the land mafia in connivance with the officials of the department.

In some cases, he added, the elected bodies misused the powers and allotted the land to non members while irregularities were also found in the audit of most of the cooperative societies and officials concerned took advantage of this situation and took over the control of these societies. —THK

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