The Ministry of Social Protection is currently working on increasing compliance of Co-operatives and friendly societies while revitalizing the sector. The department of Co-operatives in collaboration with the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) on October 24, trained cooperatives in region six in regulations concerning Anti-Money Laundering & Countering The Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT). They also spent time working out any difficulties the societies might have.
The participants were educated on the obligations of reporting entities, indicators of money laundering and terrorist financing activities and given practical experience in filing the requisite forms. The event comes just over a month after the Ministry of Finance held an activity of a similar nature to make the societies aware of the regulations of various stakeholders such as banks and others.
When combined there are over two thousand registered Friendly and Co-operative societies, however not all are active. The Ministry is currently filtering the system to have the list only reflect active societies so that the administration of the process is more effective. It is also providing the necessary assistance to revitalize dormant societies while at the same time bringing all societies into compliance.
Chief Co-operative officer Ms. Perlina Gifth said that a part of the departments mandate is training, as she mentioned its importance in her opening remarks.
There are expected to be at least two other workshops before the end of the year.
In the 2017 national budget, twenty-four million dollars was allocated to the Guyana National Cooperative Union limited which has as a part of its mandate, to advance the promotion of new co-operative societies of all types and to resuscitate existing ones that can be viable.
A co-operative is an organization in which the components of ownership control and use are integrated by being all vested in the body of the people ,members who have all come together , pooling their economic and other resources to produce common economic , cultural and social aims by means of a business.
The first attempt to institutionalize cooperatives in Guyana began with the enactment of the Cooperatives Ordinance in 1949. This operated until the current laws of Guyana Chapter 88:01 was enacted in 1966.