Accusing the Enforcement Directorate (ED) of attempting to destroy Kerala’s cooperative sector with its “overzealous” actions, the Cooperative Employees’ Coordination Committee, a common platform of various cooperative employees unions, has said that it will go ahead with protest programmes against the continued targeting of the sector.
Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday, the committee office-bearers said that the organisations were not against raids to unearth irregularities or actions based on it, but the ED was attempting to create a smokescreen by alleging corruption in all cooperative banks and attempting to wean the common people away from such banks.
Out of the 16,255 cooperative societies in the State, financial irregularities had been reported only in a handful of cases. Those involved in corruption should be exposed and strong legal action should be taken against them. But the actions of the ED and a section of the media in painting the entire cooperative sector as corrupt is suspicious.
