Obuasi teachers' credit union dissociated from CUA

Obuasi, Oct. 25, GNA - The Obuasi Teachers Co-operative Credit Union (OTCCU) has been dissociated from the Ghana Co-operative Credit Unions (CUA) for allegedly failing to submit its accounting books for auditing for the past two years.

Information made available to the Ghana News Agency at the CUA Zonal office in Kumasi confirmed the dissociation and said efforts by the Zonal auditors to audit the accounts had failed because of the unco-operative attitude of managers of the union.

Subsequently, the union had for the past two years failed to hold annual general meetings for the members thereby generating concerns by most aggrieved members.

Alarmed by this state of affairs, Mr Paul Raymond Kwofie, one of the aggrieved members wrote to the Chairman of the OTCCU on September 26, and demanded the time the next general meeting of the union would be held.

According to Mr Kwofie, the letter, which was copied to the Obuasi Municipal and the Ashanti Regional Secretaries of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) had not been replied and this forced him to write a petition to the Zonal manager of CUA in Kumasi on October 6. In the petition made available to the press, the aggrieved member appealed to the Zonal office to investigate the manner in which the Union was being administered.

Mr Kwofie indicated that some of the bylaws and articles of the CUA including the general provisions, conduct of general meetings, committee of management, loans committee, officers of the society and audit had all been infringed upon by the managers of the union.

"To be specific, there are so many infringements but the most pressing ones are officers unduly retaining their positions, officers constituting themselves as loans committee members and lack of transparency in the accounts and audit system of union", the petition stressed.

The petition said no investment whatsoever had been made while members went through frustrations before they were given meagre loans, stressing, "visit to the office of the union reveals a pathetic scene as members sometimes have to wait until the evening before they told there is no money".

Managers of the fund were not available to comment on the issue but some of the union members corroborated all the issues raised by the petitioner and also recounted the ordeal they went through before securing loans.