Defunct credit unions stricken from list

It appeared in the newspapers two week ago… two full-page advertisements naming over a hundred and fourteen cooperatives and credit unions that are on the chopping block. But lest anyone get the wrong idea, Registrar of Cooperatives and Credit Unions Zenaida Moya says this is a routine exercise designed to purge the national register of dormant institutions.

Zenaida Moya, Registrar of Cooperatives & Credit Unions

“Many had been dissolved as far back as 1950, but the department, due to lack of funds or human resources, never got around to completing the liquidation process or to even starting liquidation process in some of those instances. So we made a decision to clean the register, clean the register that houses all the names of the cooperatives and credit unions. This meant that we would have had to go to all those societies that became dissolved from as far back ad 1950 and literally complete the liquidation process.”

“None of them are recent cooperatives, by no means none of them are recent cooperatives. These are very old, old cooperatives. Old I mean, the new cooperatives, the department’s cooperative officers and the heads of units along with myself, we’re working very hard in maintaining their strength, and in some instances strengthening them.”

Moya says creditors or members of any of the cooperatives and credit unions listed in the papers can make claims on assets, of course with supporting evidence, at the Department’s office on North Front Street in Belize City, or any of the district branches of the Department of Cooperatives and Credit Unions. Meanwhile, Moya says there are thirteen active credit unions operating in Belize with assets totalling two hundred and ninety million dollars.